Quid Pro Quo
by winter machine
Summary: In late season two, everyone has something to hide. Some lucky people have even more. ADDEK bumpy-road endgame, inspired by ThrawnsGirl's request for a different kind of abortion reveal and an anonymouse's request for a season-two Addek baby. Updated Monday, May 25!
1. Something Like That

**_Hi. I am winter, and I am ridiculous. ("Hi, winter.") I've never said I was anything other than pure Shondaland shipper trash, and I am okay with that. I am hard at work on updating my WIPs - which for me means a lot of rereading and lot of, like, 200-page outlines, but I'm on it. (MerDer folks who might be checking this out, it's definitely Addek endgame though, like all my stuff, Mer-friendly, but I have an update of Take Your Life and Light it Up in the very close to being done stage, never fear). ANYWAY, then ThrawnsGirl requested an abortion reveal in an FTS and made the very generous of mistake of giving me free rein of when to set it, and an anonymous guest on FTS asked for an Addek baby in Season 2. I'm lately in love with the back handful of episodes of Season 2, which combine some genuinely couple-y Addek moments with some of the worst betrayals from both their ends. There's this uncomfortable, glorious period where the viewers have learned that Mark and Addison had a relationship and also Derek has started his "friendship" with Meredith and everyone's doing a combination of lying and trying and it's toxic and heartbreaking and wonderful. I've written lots of things touching on or in or around this period. (Most recently a flip set around those surreptitious dog walks.) This was going to be a flip, but I realized I needed several chapters to get where I wanted to go. I don't anticipate this becoming a huge, long monstrosity, but maybe half a dozen chapters assuming you'd like me to continue. So, the two requests: Addison is pregnant in season 2, and Addison tells Derek about her abortion, and I realized that they could, would, and would have to go hand in soul-crushing hand. The setting is late Season 2, somewhere around episode 2.20 (as in, post-Mark, pre-shower sex)._**

 ** _Major thank you to the best and most generous and encouraging readers, who tolerate my occasional hiatuses and are all "hiatus, winter, it's what you do best" but still forgive me in the end because I will always be back to fill your inbox with Addek trash._**

 ** _Finally, the title came out of nowhere but really worked for me since this piece will be all about the different things Derek and Addison are keeping from each other. That said, even though I took six years of Latin, I still never pictured myself as someone who would have two Latin-titled stories going on at once. You never know, do you?_**

 ** _Happy reading!_**

* * *

 ** _Quid Pro Quo  
.._**

* * *

It's been one of those days.

Okay, fine, every day here is _one of those days._

But lately they've been … well. The point is, she's decided she's going to turn it around today. She's going to be patient. And kind. Hell, she'll even be _sweet_ if that's what necessary to get by here. To get her husband to look at her here, post-Mark, post-Meredith, post-Mark-again.

Just … be sweet.

(Can't be that hard to fake, right?)

Except all _sweet_ gets her is agreeing to a tetanus booster shot from one of the twelve-year-old student nurses so she can finish her clinicals.

And Derek isn't even within earshot, so it's not like she gets any credit for offering up her arm to the none-too-tender ministrations of a girl who looks like she was born during the Clinton administration.

The girl – _woman,_ _Addie, come on –_ the woman – has long dark hair that at least she's tied up and is wearing bright pink scrubs with the kind of self-consciousness that shows she's not sick of them yet. Addison tries to remember being young and excited. Just being young is a stretch, these days.

But sweet. Right. Patient, and kind.

"I'm due in the OR in three hours," Addison says in her sweetest voice. "Do you think we'll be finished by then … Kylie?"

 _Kylie._

"Oh! Yes. I mean, yes, like, before then. For sure."

"Oh, good."

And then the battery of questions.

Which – _why_ are these necessary for a tetanus shot? Addison puts up with them in the hopes that Satan Is a Good Sport After All might become the new refrain at Seattle Grace. Plus, she can admit without even too much grudging that educating the next generation of student nurses, even if they look like they're in fifth grade, ultimately benefits everyone.

Still, there is a limit.

"No, I do not need you to get a current weight for me," Addison says tightly. She holds back on mentioning the added poundage of her jewelry; it's the kind of joke she'll save for Savvy the next time she makes a whispered phone call from the porch late at night. When sleeping in that claustrophobic little cell of a space gets to be too much.

Plus, she's fairly certain she's still retaining water from the cross-country flight. Fine, it was quite a few months ago now, but it was long. And she had to buy a last-minute seat, and –

"I'm sorry, why do you need to know the date of my last period in order to give me a tetanus shot?" Addison asks, keeping her voice patient. And kind.

"It's, um … it's on the form." Kylie – seriously, _Kylie_ – at least has the good grace to look embarrassed. "Do you want me to write that you prefer not to say, or – "

"Fine." Addison tries hard not to roll her eyes. At least this isn't the kind of information that can be used against her later. She reaches for her blackberry to check the calendar.

"It was – "

And freezes.

And then _sweet_ is the last thing on her mind.

..

"Derek."

He doesn't turn around.

"Derek!"

It's not that he doesn't hear her following him down the hallway. _Chasing_ him down the hallway, really. He could have identified her by the sound of her shoes alone, but she's also calling his name. Overkill isn't usually her style, but then she's surprised him a number of times over the last few months.

Her strides are long enough to catch up fairly quickly, and he finally turns around once it's impossible to ignore her.

"Didn't you hear me?" she asks, sounding annoyed and a little breathless.

"I turned around, didn't I?"

"That's not an answer."

"Addison." He glances at his blackberry. "I don't really have time for this."

She mutters something he can't make out.

"Excuse me?"

"Forget it." She gives him a smile that looks more like baring her teeth – to him, anyway. "I need to talk to you," she says.

"Now's not a good time."

"Now is never a good time for you, Derek, but I still need to talk to you."

"Well, unless you also have an anaplastic astrocytoma, my afternoon is booked."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you," she mutters.

He shakes his head. "I'm not doing this with you now. I need to work. We can talk about this at – what's wrong with your arm?" he asks, frowning. She turns to look at where she's massaging her upper arm with the hand of her other arm, a little absently, he realizes, as if she didn't notice it either.

"My – oh, I had a tetanus booster." She sounds distracted, like she's just remembering it. Whatever's going on with her is presumably designed to irritate or manipulate him, if he knows her, and he's pretty sure – despite the last few months – that he does in fact know her.

And he's annoyed.

"Look, Derek, I just want to – "

But he interrupts her, moving a little closer and lowering his voice. Addison always _wants_ something.

"You already have what you want, Addie. I took you back, I ended things with Meredith, like you wanted … that doesn't mean you get everything else you want too."

Her eyes are wide; for once, she seems not to have anything to say in response.

"I'll just see you at home," he says after a moment and hopes she can't tell, from the way he walks away, that he knows she's still staring at him.

..

She spends a long time sitting at her desk in the office that feels unfamiliar, still, staring at her left hand. Sometimes she runs the fingers of her right hand over her rings. Just for a little proof that she didn't make it all up. That he did love her, once. He bought rings. He knelt down, _in public_ , no less, and Derek didn't like doing things like that in public, didn't even like dancing in public, but he'd say _that was different, that was before you._ He'd say that she made him _want_ to do things.

That's the same Derek who looks at her so coldly, like he doesn't even remember her. Like she's a stranger. Angry she interrupted the life he was building here.

The thing is, she gets it. What she did to him – she gets it. And the fact that he doesn't know the half of it?

She gets that too. Maybe she's Satan. Maybe she's an adulterous bitch. But it doesn't do much for the persistent, gnawing guilt that leaves her hollow and exhausted every single day in this miserable city.

And that was … before.

Because if there's one thing she's learned, as a doctor, it's that there's always a before, when something's happened.

And whether Derek wants to talk to her or not … something's happened.

..

Derek feels guilty about their conversation in the hallway.

He doesn't say that, of course, or even imply it, but one of the privileges of eleven years of marriage is being able to read the _little_ things about your spouse and she can tell just by the way he sits down to take off his shoes.

Just by the sound of it, because she's lying in bed pretending to be asleep. He won't want to talk, and _she_ won't want to be rebuffed again, so better to forestall the whole thing.

She lies there, without saying anything, listening to the familiar sound of his getting ready for bed. Even in this tiny echoing space that's so different from any bedroom they've shared, his routine sounds familiar.

The air shifts when he gets closer. She's sleeping on the side closer to the door, her preferred side and his too, so that when she's there first she just … goes to sleep there, and lets him wake her to move when he gets home. He could climb over her and take the other side but that's not Derek's style. It's his trailer. It's his life. _She's_ the one who should feel displaced.

And she does, so it must be working.

Then she feels the mattress dip, surprised; he's sat down on the small gap of space next to her.

"I know you're awake," he says.

She opens her eyes; artifice feels like a lot of work at this point. He looks a little fuzzy in the low light. "You don't know everything," she says.

"I know you're terrible at faking sleep."

It should be an easy transition from _terrible at faking_ to the other terrible things she's done. _Faking_ to _lying_ to _cheating._ She waits for him to take the bait, but he doesn't.

He's quiet for a moment, looking at her. She notes without victory, just dull resignation, that she was right before. About the shoes. He does feel a little bad.

 _Good_.

But he still doesn't say anything.

"What?" she asks finally, a little irritably.

He looks down at the covers. "You said you wanted to talk to me."

"Earlier, you mean?"

He nods, even though they both know exactly what he meant.

"I didn't say I wanted to talk to you. I said I needed to talk to you."

He makes a depreciating sort of gesture as if to say, _same thing_ , but they both know too that it's not.

"Fine. Needed to talk to me," he repeats.

When she doesn't respond, he sighs a little. "I'm here now, so would you just – if you want to talk to me – "

She raises an eyebrow.

" _Need_ to talk to me," he corrects himself, "then talk to me."

"It's too late now," she announces and he can't seem to help himself from rolling his eyes, looking aggravated.

"Why do you have to do this?" he asks, shaking his head.

"I guess I'm just a bitch," she says pleasantly. She needs to keep it pleasant because if she starts talking, she's going to cry, and if she starts crying, then it's all over.

He looks down at her for a moment, still sitting on the side of the bed. Then he stands up.

"Are you going to move over?" he asks. His tone is neutral, like he's asking someone ahead of him on line at Starbucks.

She moves wordlessly to the side to give him the better spot in the bed. She gets her own benefit: turned away, facing the window and the wall, she doesn't have to look at him. She's much less likely to cry now.

The mattress dips as he gets in beside her. But she winces when she tries to settle on her side; the damn tetanus booster has done its work.

"Now what?" Derek asks.

"Nothing." She tries to shift to ease the pressure on her upper arm and gets the sense he's still watching her. Now he's interested? Somewhat darkly she hopes he doesn't plan to try anything. She's made a practice of saying yes, or at least not saying no, since that first awkward encounter on Thanksgiving.

"From the booster," he says.

She's a little surprised he remembers. Since when does he listen to her?

"Right." She pauses, hoping her turned posture is sufficiently discouraging for anything more interesting than sleeping. "Good night," she says after a moment.

"Good night, Addison."

But she's having trouble getting comfortable. If she can't sleep on her left side then it will have to be her right, which would be the best way to keep her sore bicep away from the pressure of the mattress. But that also means turning to face her husband.

When she finally does, she sees he's lying on his back, one arm behind his head, staring at the ceiling. Awake.

"Still hurts?" he asks.

 _Like you wouldn't believe._

"Yeah, a little."

"So sensitive," he teases her lightly, like he used to when they'd line up together for the mandatory flu shots in the hospital every fall. _Be gentle with Dr. Shepherd,_ he instructed the nurse and she looked as besotted by the twinkle in his eyes as Addison herself was – so she couldn't judge.

She misses that Derek.

"I was helping a student nurse finish her clinical numbers," Addison says in a small voice, feeling a little ridiculous, but still wanting some validation. Even after everything, wasn't that the whole point?

"That was nice of you," Derek says, and even though it's embarrassing, she feels a little spark of warmth in her midsection. "Nice," he repeats, "… and maybe a little stupid." Before she really registers what he's doing, he's turned toward her and is running a gentle hand over the sore spot on her upper arm.

"Ow," she says, pulling away.

"Would you just – "

"Fine." She offers him her arm again, then finds herself, for some reason, defensive of Kylie with her long ponytail and nervous questions. "She did a fine job," Addison says. "It's not her fault. I'm just … ." Her voice trails off.

"Sensitive," Derek suggests.

"Sensitive," she echoes. "You think so?"

"I think so," he says. He's gripping her arm carefully now, just barely massaging the knot under the skin with his thumb, and she can't deny it's effective.

"I thought I was Satan."

"You can't be both?" His voice has that teasing quality again. Maybe he only likes her in the dark.

When he can't really see her.

 _I look at you and I feel nauseous._

But they have to turn on the lights sometime.

"Better?" he asks.

 _Than what?_

"Yes. Thank you."

She sounds so formal. With the man she's been married to for eleven years. _Yes, doctor, the treatment appears to be working. Thanks so much for your services._

"Good." He releases her arm and she hopes it's not obvious that she misses the contact. He rolls onto his back again and she's left there on her side, facing him. She's looking right at the spot on his chest where she used to rest her head, but it's not hers any more than _he_ is, now.

He may still feel a little guilty, but she … she feels a lot guilty. About a lot of things.

She closes her eyes. She has a feeling she's going to be awake for a while. But Derek is already three quarters of the way to slumber so he won't notice, at least, if she has to fake sleep for a few hours.

He was right, you know. She's terrible at faking sleep.

She has a faint stab of hope – and of regret, too, all at the same time – that she's at least better at faking other things.

..

He wakes up early with Doc before the eager dog can wake Addison. He already has both paws on the bed and an expression of pure canine enthusiasm when Derek swings his legs out.

"You want to go for a – outside?" Derek whispers, realizing a moment too late that he came far too close to the word _walk_ for any kind of calm reaction. Doc barks joyfully and loudly, claws scrabbling the trailer floors when he darts in joyous circles.

"Derek?" Addison is rubbing her eyes. "It's my turn to take him out."

"I'm already up." He steps into his boots, noticing that his words sound sincere. Addison doesn't need to know that he feels a little – well, that she could use some extra sleep, is the point. "Go back to sleep," he says.

The thing is … being a dog is enviable.

This is what he decides while he walks with Doc's leash loosely on one hand and Doc expresses boundless enthusiasm for every square inch of their regular morning routine.

It's crisp outside – not quite spring, not quite not. He's still getting used to the weather here. When Addison complains, he pretends it's ideal. Contradicting her is more important than the truth, which is that it's different. Whether it's better or worse … it's different. Things are different now.

..

"I thought you were off duty this morning."

He looks up, squinting a little in the faint sun, at the familiar face. "Change of plans," he says.

"Yes. I got that from your call. See, this is why it's hard to keep up with you." She says it like she's joking, her tone light and amused.

They cover ground quickly, sharing a water bottle and morning energy alike. They're cresting the hill when Doc canters away from them to smell a patch of rocks and Meredith pauses to run her fingers through her hair.

Then she looks at him.

"Derek."

"Hm?"

"Nothing's wrong with Addison, is there?"

 _Oh, plenty is wrong with Addison._

"No. What do you mean?" he asks.

"One of the student nurses told Monica that Addison bolted out of the room yesterday in the middle of … something."

"Ah." He studies her face for a moment, alive here in the outdoors with the rustling of other hikers and leaves and small animal noises. "Is this what passes for gossip in the hospital halls these days?"

"I guess it's been slow since the big news." Her tone isn't accusatory, but he feels the accusation nonetheless. _Since Addison got here and the two of you blew up my life._

"Addison … is not a fan of shots," he says, "despite being a doctor. She's been bolting out of exam rooms for years." He pauses. "How did you find out this … fascinating news, anyway?"

"Monica and I were stuck in the scrub room for twenty minutes yesterday afternoon waiting for Pierson," she says, accepting the distraction easily. "He really makes his own schedule. Which is – yeah, I know he's amazing, but so are you and you're always on time."

"Not everyone can be me."

"No … they can't."

She's looking at him in a way that makes him feel a little uncomfortable.

He shouldn't feel uncomfortable.

Yes, he called her, and told her he was walking Doc this morning. And they would have met tomorrow, when he walked Doc, even if he hadn't called.

But it's just a walk.

It's just a walk, and they're friends.

Why shouldn't he have friends?

"Meredith – "

"I'm supposed to work with Dr. Agarwal today," she says, and he's intensely grateful that she's picked another topic, "which I was really excited about but now I don't think I can look him in the eyes after Izzie saw his iPod in the elevator last night and he was listening to Britney Spears." She sounds amused. "Britney Spears. I mean, there are weird surgical rituals … and then there's Britney Spears."

Doc interrupts, barking joyfully at the sight of a squirrel, then bolting back to them to jump up on each of their legs in turn.

"So hospital gossip _is_ exciting, then," he says.

"That's what I'm saying." She gives him a sideways smile that tenses his muscles.

"Meredith – "

"Doc, no!"

She's chasing him up the path. "Spit that out!" she commands and Doc looks up at her with bright-eyed puzzlement, then darts away.

"Derek, would you just – stop laughing, it's disgusting."

"It's just an old shoe."

"There could be an old _foot_ in it!"

"What kind of a trail do you think this is?" he asks, but at a look from her he consents to help her chase Doc and wrestle the old shoe out of his gleefully furry muzzle. Their hands meet in his fur and he has a momentary spark of – something. And then he snaps out of it.

"I should head back," he says, beckoning Doc and then re-clipping his leash. "You coming?"

"I might stay a little longer," she says. "I have late call."

"Okay." He pauses a few paces away. It's a busy trail, with plenty of walkers and hikers in the morning, and Meredith has a cell phone. "See you at work, then," he says.

"I'll be there," she responds without turning around. One of her arms is lifted to shade her eyes; she's looking up the trail – at what, he's not sure.

..

The thing is, she has no idea what she would have told him, if he'd been willing to talk to her yesterday. When she _needed_ him. When the shock of it was still – the thing is that she's ninety percent bluff sometimes, and she gets that. So she showers like she lives here and she grinds beans she bought herself that Derek pretends to hate.

 _So, honey, the thing is, I kind of lost track of time here in this depressing town and I didn't quite realize that I was late. Like really late. Like the kind of late my patients are when they come visit me and then I stick a wand in –_

Maybe not like that.

 _The thing with boring sex is, it doesn't actually have to be exciting to get the job done, as long as –_

She's been taking hormonal birth control for years. It's part of her regular routine. Like Derek complaining about how much she spends on coffee beans, even though he knows and she knows he knows that her coffee just tastes better.

And here's the thing. No, here are three things. Three things she knows:

First, her routine is off. What passes for routine, here in Seattle, isn't really routine at all.

Second, the pill isn't a hundred percent effective, because nothing is except abstinence, and we all know how good she is at that.

And third, finally, she's an OBGYN by training and she knows that for whatever reason, a pregnancy is more likely … after another pregnancy.

It's one of those snake-eating-its-own-tail frustrating facts that makes OBGYN both fascinating and heartbreaking, but she's seen it time and time again.

Which means that it's not one pregnancy she's currently keeping from Derek.

It's two.

..

"How was your walk?" Addison asks when he lets himself back into the trailer.

He has to stifle his knee-jerk response – _she's actually not being passive-aggressive for once, she has no idea you were walking with Meredith._ "It was fine," he says, unclipping Doc, who bounds toward Addison with glee. She sets down her coffee and squats in front of him to greet him, burying her hands in his fur. The sight of her hands – so different from Meredith's, so much bigger and with the light-catching rings – buried in that same fur makes him feel distinctly unsettled.

He pours a cup of coffee to distract himself, so he won't watch, and won't think how much most of the denizens of Seattle Grace would be somewhere between shocked and amused to see Satan crouching on the floor in her robe cooing adoringly to the faintly muddy and barely trained mutt, who is currently licking her face.

Addison stands up finally and leans against the counter. "I knew it was the right call to wait to do my makeup," she says a little ruefully. Doc, nestled loyally by her feet, lets his tongue loll a bit as if to take credit. It's hard not to smile.

"We could train him," he suggests.

"We could." Addison looks down at Doc. "Not that he's not great the way he is."

"He is great. Obedient … not so much. But great."

"He knows some commands. Doesn't he?" Addison looks down. "Doc. Sit," she says.

"He's already sitting, Addison."

"I know. But he stayed sitting, didn't he?"

"Pretty sure you've trained a few residents who'd be surprised by what you apparently think counts as _obedience._ "

She smiles a little at this. "Did he give you any trouble out on the trail?"

"No. Well, he did try to eat a particularly filthy stray shoe. I had to chase him down."

"We know he likes to eat shoes." Addison takes a sip of coffee. "At least it wasn't one of mine."

"No, it definitely wasn't one of yours. And it looked like it had been there for a while. It was a very old shoe."

Addison wrinkles her nose. "At least there wasn't a very old foot in it," she says.

"That's just what she said."

He hears the words as if they come from a stranger's mouth, lips thick.

Time suddenly slows down. _Shepherd, you idiot._

"She?" Addison asks. Time jerks forward again and he sees that his wife looks confused, but not particularly suspicious.

"A couple of hikers helped me chase Doc down," he says, relieved but also a little troubled by his own lie, there's no time to question it now.

"Ah." Addison nods. "Good thing you weren't alone out there, then."

 _Something like that._

..

They get ready for work in parallel, mostly silent, sometimes not, and it's so calm and – is it civil? – that he feels an unwelcome pang of guilt. She wanted to talk to him about something.

No, what was her correction – she _needed_ to talk to him about something, and he shut her down. And then she shut him down.

What was that Meredith said on the trail? _Nothing's wrong with Addison, is there?_

Is it possible there was more to her tetanus booster than just the sting of the vaccination? For a brief moment of nervousness he's back in the conference room with Savvy and Weiss and Addison too, arguing over test results. Addison isn't sick. If Addison were sick, she'd tell him.

Wouldn't she?

 _Or she'd try, and you'd shut her down._

"Addison?"

"Hm?" She leans out of the bathroom at the sound of her name. She's holding a brush that he knows from living with her a third of his life belongs to a complicated set that he has no idea why she needs, and that every single one is crucially important for different reasons that he couldn't possible understand. The upshot is that she needs all his counter space, and he needs to deal with it. Such is life with Addison.

"Are you all right?"

Her brow furrows a little. "What do you mean?"

Okay, that's a fair question.

"I just mean – there's something going around," he says, wondering if he sounds as unconvincing to her as he does to himself. "You know, early spring."

"Oh." She looks at the makeup brush in her hand then back at him. "I'm not sick," she says.

"Good."

Her mouth quirks a little. "Okay," she says. "Well, I'm just going to – " she gestures inside the bathroom with her brush, and he nods like he needs her permission.

There you go. She's fine.

She's fine, and he's fine, and everyone's telling the truth and no one is lying and how is this his life, sixteen years after the day he met his wife for the first time?

"You want to drive together?" she asks him as she shrugs into her coat. There's something in her voice – hope, a little bit of hurt – that compels him to say yes, even though he wants nothing more right now than to be alone. She smiles a little, which makes it worse.

"But don't backseat drive," he warns her, pointing a finger in her direction.

"Don't point at me," she says, but she's still smiling.

"Quid pro quo?" he asks, holding open the trailer door for her.

She leans in and gives him a quick kiss as she walks past him, surprising him a little. "Something like that," she says.

* * *

 _ **My babies. There's a reason I've been trash for you since 2006. I'll admit it: I'm excited for this story, and I PROMISE not to give up any WIPs in the process, so ... review, and let me know what you think? Thank you times infinity as always for reading!**_


	2. Bait

_**A/N: Thanks so much for the warm welcome back and the feedback on this new story. I have plenty of other updates planned, but this one decided it needed to be posted today, and who am I to argue with a story? I hope you enjoy!**_

* * *

 _ **Bait**_

 _Gestational Age: Seven weeks, two days  
People Who Know So Far: Two (if you count the embryo)_

 _.._

* * *

Addison can keep a secret.

It's a family trait, you could say, whether that secret is her father's latest tryst with one in a long line of blondes or the unsavory provenance of the original Bradford fortune.

And she can keep this one, if she has to.

Both of them.

She may have lost track of time before – she may have lost track of it twice – but she's paying attention now.

Seven weeks and two days LMP. Two weeks of extra credit from her last period to the presumptive date of conception. Which means five weeks and two days of development.

You know how there are glass half empty people, and glass half full?

You could say fetal development is like that too. On the one hand, there's all the miraculous things the embryo, and then the fetus, is doing week by week – doubling in size, growing _organs_ , for crying out loud. And then on the other side there's all the risks to the fetus. There's the color-wheel chart in her office she rarely shares with patients – though they can probably find it on the internet these days – tracking risk of miscarriage day by day through all forty weeks until finally drops to 0% once the baby is born.

Growth, and decline: OBGYNs track from both sides.

Sometimes, they don't even seem that different.

But … seven weeks, and two days. She only has to close her eyes to see its exact stage of development. Which means two things: first, her baby (her baby!) still has a tail. Second, the spotting a few weeks ago that she assumed was part of the Seattle-has-no-pattern-and-also-the-thing-she-doesn't-like-to-think-about?

Yeah. That wasn't a period. And she should have realized.

As a _very_ well trained OBGYN, among other professional accomplishments, she should have picked up on this earlier. Then again, NCOG conferences are filled with female OBGYNs telling stories of surprise pregnancies – usually over drinks – and the occasional male colleague missing obvious signs of pregnancy in their wives.

Work is one thing. Her body is another.

The main difference, as she can see it? She actually has control over _one_ of those things.

The point is, she's pregnant.

The _issue_ is … that early pregnancy symptoms mirror, with unfortunate accuracy, the symptoms of Living in Seattle With a Husband Who Hates You.

 _Exhaustion_. Yeah, since her heels touched the ground in Washington state.

 _Nausea._ That started right about the moment she first saw her husband with Meredith Grey.

The same hormone that turned the stick an alarmingly quick pink is responsible for both of those things.

And actually – she glances automatically down to see if – no, nothing interesting in the way of growth.

She still has no idea what she would have told Derek yesterday if he'd been willing to talk to her in the hallway, or why it suddenly seems impossible to tell him.

She's fairly certain what Derek would say – that she's passive-aggressive down to the bone, that she's waiting for him to … prove something, by figuring it out himself. By noticing.

 _No, honey, I realized a while ago now that you'd stopped noticing me. Long before Seattle._

So she's stuck drinking in the tiniest bits of his attention: this morning's ride in the car, when Derek listens with such focus to the news on NPR that you'd think he was prepping for nuclear war, or at least a term paper, but does glance at her when she attempts to start conversation during sponsor breaks. That's something. And he weighs in with genuine interest on a neuroendocrine issue with one of her patients, but then she's never had a problem engaging him with medicine. So that doesn't count. Not really.

"Good morning, Dr. Shepherd!"

 _Not really._

She returns the greeting without really taking stock. That's it for the dwindling chart of attention from her husband; he dropped a dutiful kiss on her cheek when she turned her face up to him, out of habit, at the elevators, and then they separated … and that was that.

She needs coffee.

She needs coffee, but she had coffee, this morning. In the trailer.

Okay, fine.

The studies on caffeine are … what they are, and she's of grudgingly advanced maternal age, so she'll limit herself to two. _Fine_. She'll revisit if she falls asleep in the OR. But since no one is pelting her with cold cuts or trying to coerce her into a scuba dive or even a sauna – and since no one is exactly offering her coffee here, or noticing what she does at all, or –

But she's not going to spiral.

It's just coffee.

..

"Coffee?"

Derek looks with some suspicion at the intern holding out the paper cup. It's not that he doesn't trust her – in the OR, certainly, he would be a fool not to notice her talents. But she made her position on him, _personally_ , clear, and she's Meredith's best friend.

"Did you poison it?"

"No," Yang says seriously, as if it's a perfectly normal question. "There are very few poisons that you can disguise in black coffee. The bitterness is too apparent. Now, if you drank your coffee with sugar – "

"I'll take your word for it." He accepts the cup and takes a few welcome sips. It tastes … burned, and old, and not much like the coffee Addison insists on. But just as she insists on buying it, he insists on pretending he doesn't like it much.

That's just how it is.

"Thank you, Dr. Yang," he says and turns to leave.

"Dr. Shepherd!"

"Yes?" He turns around, playing along as if he expected the coffee was the end of it.

"I, uh, I may have overheard that you have an atypical rhabdoid tumor this afternoon … the one Mercy West misdiagnosed as a medulloblastoma." She speaks very quickly and then bares her teeth in what he supposes is intended as a smile.

"I do," Derek says, a little amused. "Did you have a question?"

"Just – may I assist? Sir," she adds, and he has to fight down a smile.

"Dr. Bailey is in charge of your assignments," he points out mildly.

"Yes! I asked her already. Well, I told her I was going to ask you. She said it was fine."

Derek blinks. That doesn't sound much like Bailey, and Yang seems to take his point.

"She said I could ask you at my own risk, and that she was too tired to remind me yet again what happens to interns who pester busy attendings." She says all this very fast too.

"You can assist."

Her eyes widen. "Thank you!"

"You're welcome." He pauses. "Not because of the coffee, though, to be clear."

Yang nods. "It's clear." She pauses, then looks at him for a second. "And not because of – "

"No, Dr. Yang, not because of that either." He takes a final sip. "You can tell Dr. Bailey you'll be assisting."

He's pretty sure, as he walks away, that he can hear a rather undignified _yes!_ from Yang.

It's amusing, or it would be, if he could remember his own intern days – chasing after the attendings whose surgeries he longed to watch, surviving on little more than caffeine and enthusiasm for days on end – if that period of his life weren't tainted now.

The problem, when your childhood best friend and the wife you started dating in medical school join forces to betray you?

They pretty much taint every memory you have.

 _But please, Addison, tell me more about how I'm the bad guy in all this, and you're the victim._

It's not like she says it out loud – much – but it's very clear. Then again, Addison has never had trouble being both loud _and_ clear without saying anything at all.

..

Tonight's going to be a call-Savvy-from-the-porch night. She can just feel it.

First of all, her arm is still sore from the stupid tetanus shot. Then again, maybe she can put it to good use and make Derek take her fishing – the rusty fish hooks are no match for now, not after yesterday's tetanus shot.

The concept makes her smile, a little. Which is nice, because – something needs to. And it's not like people are cracking a lot of jokes around her, here.

Or talking to her much at all.

She has a light-ish day, for her, although things can change in the blink of an eye.

(That much … is definitely clear.)

She has a straightforward BSO at noon. It's an ideal procedure to involve an intern, and since every day in Seattle in her lucky day –

Okay, it's not Grey.

But it's a close runner-up.

"Looks like you're on my service today, Dr. Stevens." She says it brightly, like there's such a thing as _good news_ in Seattle. Kind and patient, right? Changing Satan's narrative.

"Yes, it looks like I am … Dr. Shepherd."

… yeah, so Stevens isn't going to make this easy.

The intern is just this side of insolent, but it's not like Addison can't sympathize. She didn't speak to Richard for a year after what he did to her. All of the rest of her intern year. And then a solid chunk of the second year of her residency. She assured Derek she didn't mind if _he_ talked to the man she called Dr. Webber then – in fact, she encouraged it, because as angry as she was she didn't want to miss out on learning. And to his credit, once in a while Derek would come back to her in the library or one of their dusty little student apartments and pass along some tidbit from Richard that he must have meant, even if he didn't say so, for Addison.

But did she learn distance, from his little game?

Well.

 _Addison, don't do this. Don't get attached. Don't get involved._

Maybe not so much.

..

She eats lunch alone, which is normal for her here, and it's a granola bar and it's ten-fifteen in the morning. But she's operating at noon, and even though she's alone, she's also … not.

Not like she used to be.

Not anymore.

And even though she hasn't told Derek yet – or anyone – and even though she hasn't heard the heartbeat yet, she knows it's there. The secret thumps within her.

..

"Will you wait for me to go home tonight?"

He doesn't have to turn around, and anyway only one person would ask him that. Her plaintive tone grates a little.

"Derek?"

She's standing next to him now.

"I heard you," he says. His gaze flickers automatically back to the board. "I don't know how long this procedure will go."

"I don't have my car," she adds. "I could, uh, I could take the ferry, I guess, and then take a cab from the ferry terminal but I'm not actually sure what I would tell them in terms of where I'm going. Does your … trailer … have an address? Coordinate points or a line of latitude or something, or… ."

"I'll wait for you," he says, effectively cutting off what was working from a ramble into a rant. She can keep going for quite a while on the subject of the trailer. The more she hates it, the more he'll dig his heels in, and it's not like she doesn't know that. It's elementary Shepherd Marriage, the kindergarten science experiment as compared to the level of fluency required now to understand their marriage. Which is more like Orgo.

Orgo the time Mark talked him into going out on a Tuesday night and he was actually still tipsy for their eight a.m. lecture the next morning.

"Okay." Her mouth quirks a little like she's going to smile. "I have patients and then … paperwork, so I'll just see you later."

..

She does have paperwork. She has plenty to do.

Work isn't the issue. It never has been.

The issue is that she needs to tell him.

The issue is that she knows from experience that the longer she waits, the harder it will be.

She could tell him in the car, tonight. They'll drive home together, and – no, Derek won't want to talk to her. He'll want to listen to the news – he's never been as well informed as he has been since he decided he no longer likes talking to her in the car, and that didn't start in Seattle, either. They used to drive all the way out to the Hamptons in mid-summer traffic with music or the Yankees or nothing at all humming in the background, talking to each other. There was a time when being alone in the car, together, was a treat.

There was a time when … a lot of things. When she had a marriage, a real one. When she had friends who lived in the same city she did.

Just to take stock, briefly, of her friends in Seattle:

 **One** : Derek – _former best friend, current technically-speaking husband and sometime lover, tends to avoid her at all cost during the workday, might be better defined as a frenemy._

 **Two** : Richard – _current boss, former mentor, once and future puppetmaster, see number 3._

 **Three** : Stevens – _current intern, former maybe-going-to-be-protegee, currently hates her because of number 2, and also Stevens's friend used to date number 1, and Seattle is too damned small for all this._

 **Four** : Grey – _current intern, former mistress of number 1, also works for number 2 – and number 1, come to think of it, seriously Derek, and friend of number 3. Other than their unfortunate shared entry on The List, not much in common. Oh, and probably hates her for stealing her perfect boyfriend and turning him back into a pumpkin, aka a not-so-perfect husband._

 **Five** : ... N/A

"Join a club," Savvy suggests when she calls. Addison won't even have to wait for the porch, Savvy _–_ bless her _–_ calls while she was waiting for Derek to get out of surgery. Just hearing her best friend's voice was a relief, even if it sounds like she's having trouble keeping a straight face. "You can meet people that way. Or take a class."

"Don't mention Pilates again, Sav, or I'll hang up." She glances at her office door, confirming it's firmly closed, and then props her feet up on her desk and tips her chair back in a most undignified way.

"You won't hang up." She can tell Savvy is smiling.

"I won't, but I'll want to." Addison pauses. "So, have your new Pilates friends replaced me yet?"

"No one could replace you, Addie," Savvy says and she feels warmth spread through her. Even if she set herself up for the validation she desperately needed … it still feels good. She can always hate herself for it later … just add it to the list.

"Why are you working so late, anyway?" Addison asks, glancing at the time.

"I have a filing, and I don't trust the children my partner hired." Savvy sighs a little into the phone. "Plus, Weiss's trial starts tomorrow so it's not like he's home either."

Well. She can identify with that.

"Don't you have a dog?" Savvy asks.

"That's a little bit of a non-sequitur."

"Not really. Take him to a dog park or something."

"He's more of a hiker."

Savvy sighs into the phone. "Did you ever think, Addie, that part of the problem is that you don't look outside of – hospitals – for friends?"

She appreciates, at least, that Savvy doesn't say, _and more_ , even though she and Derek are both walking clichés with their affair partners. Then again, who do you talk to if you don't talk to people at work, and who do you screw other than people you talk to?

" _You're_ not inside the hospital," Addison points out, "and you'd better not be anytime soon."

"That's sweet. In an Addison way, but still … sweet." Savvy pauses. "I miss you, you know."

There it is. What she needed to hear.

"I miss you too."

"Are you two planning any trips back to New York?"

 _You two._ The most they plan these days is who gets to shower first, and it's generally Derek because Addison lost shower-first privileges when she screwed his best friend. That's the kind of _plans_ they have.

"Um … I'm not sure."

"I ran into Nancy the other day, did she tell you?"

"No." She swallows, digesting the news. She and Nancy played a bit of phone tag, after Derek left, and had a quick awkward drink, but – she's Derek's sister, she has no idea what really happened between Addison and Mark, and as much as they were as close as sisters … Addison is fairly certain Nancy would be less than thrilled to know what actually went down.

And she can't really blame her.

"Yeah, I ran into her at Barney's, actually. She told me Catherine got in early to Harvard." Savvy groans a little into the phone. "Do we _really_ know people with kids old enough to go to Harvard?"

"She's not old enough to go – just to get in," Addison corrects, to cover her drumming heartbeat. "Nancy's a couple years older too," she adds.

But Catherine was born the same year Derek and Addison met. She's the first Shepherd baby from her tenure in the family, the first one she held under a Christmas tree, and they have a special – and she didn't even know she was applying. Archie gives a ridiculous amount of money every year, she could have – but Nancy clearly didn't want to tell her, and Katie didn't need her help. Fine.

"Nice distinction, Addie, I have a job as a junior associate for you if you're interested."

"Not if it's working for you – I've heard what you put your juniors through."

"It can't be worse than what you put your interns through."

Fair enough. Addison checks the time – Derek has at least another hour in surgery. Maybe she should have told him she'd take his car … but then he's still Derek, and unlikely to hand over the keys.

"How's Weiss?" she asks.

"He's Weiss." Savvy's smiling into the phone, she can tell. "How's Derek?"

"He's the same."

"He's Weiss, too?"

"Very funny." Addison fidgets with a strand of long hair. Okay, here goes.

She's going to tell Savvy.

She needs to tell Savvy.

And now's the time.

"Sav – "

But her friend is cursing into the phone in a _most_ unladylike way. "Addie, I'm so sorry, I need to run. I need to go _murder_ someone who apparently can't proofread no matter how much we overpay him when the ink on his degree hasn't even dried yet – "

"Go, go," Addison says hastily, figuring Savvy should save the rest of her rant for the unfortunate associate who crossed her.

Which means the current tally of people who know she's pregnant is still … two, if you count the embryo.

Great.

..

"That was amazing. Seriously amazing. Incredible."

Derek pulls off his scrub cap, letting the breathless intern continue. Interrupting her seems futile, anyway, and he's faintly flattered – and a fair bit impressed. She really is very good, if a little abrasive.

Maybe a lot abrasive.

He lets her go on a bit longer, enjoying being somewhat indulgent, before makes his escape.

And then he lingers. Admittedly, he lingers.

He showers in the attendings' lounge, letting the hot water pound the ache out of his neck muscles. He sits for a while on one of the padded benches, toweling his hair dry. It's cold out, that's what he tells himself. Early spring. He's almost forty and he still remembers vividly what his mother's reaction would be to wet hair plus cold weather plus no hat.

He stops in his office and even though he doesn't really need to do it, not this second and not from here, updates his chart, records some of his notes. Props his feet on his desk – Addison isn't here to tell him it's undignified, at least – and studies a few pre-op scans.

He's aware Addison is waiting for him. He's aware she'd read into this, in her typical way, assume he's punishing her by making her stay later than she'd like. Getting her back for pushing him to drive in together this morning. She got what she wanted this morning, didn't she? So now, if she has to stay a little longer than she'd like …

Well. For better or for worse, right?

 _It's about the vows._

..

It's just past nine-thirty when he decides he's made his point. After all, she could have called his office, she could have messaged him – she'll have plenty of ways to find out he's out of surgery, that he's taken his time in letting her know.

It's not about her, anyway. He's not doing this _to_ her. He's trying, with some desperation at times, to get a moment alone. Just a moment or two without her.

He messages her, and she doesn't respond.

With the barest whiff of embarrassment, he realizes he has no idea what her extension is. And the idea of calling the main number to be routed to her – when they can tell the call comes from him – let's just say he's been the subject of enough gossip.

So now he's annoyed. Is she getting him back, for taking so long? Does everything have to be a chess game – not two moves ahead but ten, twelve, impossible to keep up?

He stands to stretch his legs, then figures he might as well just drop by her office. It's on his way. In a way.

Outside her door, he knocks a few times. He's mostly avoided her office, in all honesty. For a variety of reasons.

No answer.

Annoyed, he knocks again. He'll give her one more chance, and then he's leaving without her.

He wouldn't put it past her to have left hours ago, made her way back to the trailer, where she'll be waiting for him and somehow turn this into _his_ crime.

Still no response.

That's it. He's leaving without her.

He pushes the door open anyway – it's unlocked, and he's just confirming.

She's there.

She's sleeping _._

She's … _sleeping_ with her head on the desk resting on her folded arms, her long hair spread out everywhere. He can see the movement of her rib cage through the fabric of her blouse, breathing deeply, as if she's been asleep for a while.

She doesn't wake as he approaches, either, confirming his suspicion.

They're both trained to sleep through as much as possible, so he's not surprised.

"Addison."

Nothing.

He says her name again. He takes one of her shoulders – it's warm from sleep, and shakes her lightly. "Addison."

She startles awake then, pulling away from his hand and sitting up. Her eyes are huge and confused when she turns them up to him, her long hair in disarray.

"You were sleeping," he says, hearing a note of defensiveness in his voice even though he's not sure why.

"I was sleeping," she repeats slowly. Then she blinks, coming fully awake and pushing her hair behind her ears. "What time is it?" She glances down at her notes when he tells her.

"Don't worry, you only drooled a little," he says lightly, the way he used to tease her if she'd fall asleep on her notes in the library. He's not sure the last time he's seen her sleep on a pile of work like that.

Her face flushes. "Did you, um, were you able to get the whole mass?" she asks.

He nods, and she smiles. "Congratulations."

Some of her makeup is smudged around her eyes, presumably from sleeping in it.

"It's not that late," he says, unprompted, feeling a little defensive.

"I know." She pushes back her chair, her movements slow and logy like her body still wants to sleep, even if the rest of her is alert.

"Why are you so tired?" he asks.

"I was operating too," she says; now it's her turn to be defensive.

"An uncomplicated BSO? You could do that in your sleep."

There's a pause where he's embarrassed and tries valiantly not to show it, that he's let her see he still checks the board for her surgeries. It's habit, that's all. Plus, it's _his_ surname up there, so of course his eye is drawn to it. It's no different from anyone else with that name: he's be just as aware of an unrelated Dr. Shepherd.

There's no question she notices, it's just a question of whether she's going to push it – but she doesn't. He assumes she's filing it away to use against him later. She has whole filing cabinets at her disposal.

"It was long," she says. "Or it felt long, anyway. Stevens was assisting," she adds.

He half-nods, waiting for her to explain why that's an issue.

"Stevens," she repeats.

"I heard you the first time. Was there a problem?"

She pauses, looking at him.

He's missed something, clearly, but it's not his job to follow up, to be at the beck and call of her hints and tricks.

Not anymore.

"Never mind," she says finally, and he nods as if that's the end of it.

 _Are you all right?_ He could ask her, and it's not really like her to fall asleep so fully like that but – it's fine. She's fine.

He throws her a bone by forcing himself to be patient while she gathers the five hundred things she apparently needs before she's finished packing the bag that probably weighs more than she does. There's a moment where she glances at him and he considers helping her on with her coat and then he decides not to; it's all over in a blink, but he knows she saw it too.

They don't speak again until they've traveled side by side, silent, in the elevator and across the parking lot.

"Did you eat?" he asks finally, glancing at her across the top of his jeep.

She shakes her head.

"We can stop, if you want." He pauses with a hand on the door. "Pick something up."

"It's okay. I'm not hungry."

More bait.

For someone who hates literal fishing, she's a damned expert at the figurative kind.

He doesn't take the bait, though.

He avoids her hooks.

He waits until she's fussed sufficiently with her seat belt, as always, to back out of his parking space, and once they've pulled onto the road, he can't resist.

"This is why it doesn't make sense to drive in together," he says.

He's concentrating on the road, eyes forward, but he can still tell she's looking at him.

He could really use a drink.

Most likely … so could she.

He may not know much, these days, but he knows that can't have changed.

* * *

 _ **I love second-season Addek. Let's be real, I love all Addek, anytime, any place, any anything. And I love Savvy, too. And I am loving writing this story so I hope you are enjoying reading it too. There's lots more where this came from. What else do I love? Reviews. Am I shameless? F yeah. I love hearing from you, so I hope you'll let me know your thoughts. Thank you for reading!**_


	3. Telltale Heart

_**A/N: Thank you so much for the comments and reviews and encouragement. I'm thrilled you're enjoying the story so far! This chapter is a little long, but a lot went into it. Expect the next chapter up faster, if interest continues, because much of it is finished. I hope you enjoy!**_

* * *

 _ **Telltale Heart**_

 _Gestational Age: Seven weeks, six days  
People Who Know So Far: Still two (if you're still counting the embryo)  
Unsuccessful Attempts to Tell Husband: Three and a half_

 _.._

* * *

She wakes up alone.

Not the same alone as yesterday morning, when Derek never came home – but he did text her, _operating at six, I'll just crash here for a few hours_ , so chalk that up in the constant tally she has running in her head. The daisy whose petals are more or less everything Derek does in her presence.

Except it's more like: _He hates me. He hates me not._

So that was in the _hates me not_ column, which was something.

When they were still seeing the couples therapist, he said something like, _it's dangerous to keep a scorecard in marriage, but I'm sure you know that_ , and Addison had to hide her genuine surprise.

No scorecard?

But every day counts. Every day since she's known, anyway.

With no one else in the trailer, she takes just a moment to forget everything she learned as a resident, a fellow, an attending, and becomes one more woman barely halfway through the first trimester to slide her hand over her belly – she's just a pregnant woman, just for a moment, so the _belly_ is where babies grow – and close her eyes.

She's not going to feel anything. Intellectually, she knows this.

Physically, though, her heart speeds up.

And thinking of her own heart makes her hand tighten, a little.

She needs to tell him.

To be clear, she's tried. More than once.

Three and a half times, in total.

To review:

 _The First Attempt._

That would be the night he found her sleeping in her office, and they drove back from the hospital together – she really thought she was going to do it. Derek was standing in what passes for a kitchen in what passes for their home pouring himself a drink. His back was to her, his shoulders tense, and she was so tired it took everything left in her to undress before she passed out.

(Well. She did manage to hang her clothing up neatly, but that's a habit she hasn't broken since she was big enough to stand on a wooden stool and reach her wardrobe – thanks to Bizzy, always mother of the year, who informed her when she was four or five that elves came in the night to steal clothing that little girls left on the floor or tossed over a chair. And then they moved on to toys.)

No elf is going to steal this skirt, first of all. And assuming the adult version of _toys_ is one of more fabulous purse/shoes/fill-in-the-blank, she's not chancing that either.

So: clothes hung up, pajamas on, and she was too tired even to start the semi-nightly game of musical-trailer-bed, just rolling to the far side of the mattress and letting sleep overtake her. She didn't wake up when Derek came to bed. Needless to say, she didn't tell him.

The next morning, he poured her a cup of coffee when he came back from walking Doc – pull off a petal for _hates me not_ , and when she was slow to rise he brought it to where she was propped up on her elbows in bed – another petal! – and she held the warm mug in one hand and stroked a happily worn-out Doc's ears with the other, and Derek was just – moving around the trailer, getting ready like an ordinary morning, and she actually took a breath. An inhale, a preparation, and she said, _Derek_ , just like that, just his name. And he said, _I'm late, Addie._ She remembers the _Addie_ , because these days that gets a daisy petal, and she remembers that she could tell even from across the trailer – okay, fine, that's not much distance – both that he had stopped really listening and that he was relieved she didn't push it. Two more petals: _he hates me._

He didn't come home that night, so she woke up alone with no chance to tell him – but he did send her that text and when she saw him in the morning by the catwalk and congratulated him on his successful surgery, he smiled at her (petal, _he hates me not_ ). And she thought: _tonight_. Tonight's the night.

Except two surgeries left her tired enough that she was asleep when Derek got home – sleeping so heavily, apparently, that he must have vaulted over her supine body because she woke up on the good side of the bed. Which leads her to ...

 _The Second Attempt._

He was in a decent mood the next morning, _don't get used to the view_ , he teased her. She was, as usual, trying to find her things in the limited, cramped space and they passed each other across the trailer once, twice, getting ready in tandem. And then they were trying to move past each other one more time and missed. Once, and then twice, and then Derek took her by the hips to slide past her at the same time she put her hands on his shoulders to move past _him_ and somehow that didn't work and they both ended up laughing a little; he said _I'll lead_ , an old private joke to the private dance classes Bizzy insisted on before the wedding when Derek told her he wouldn't dance in public. She felt close to him in that moment, actually close, and she said his name, looking at his face, gearing up to tell him. Before she could say anything she saw the light in his eyes change, saw his gaze flicker to his own hands on her before they dropped back to his side. It couldn't have been clearer if he'd put it up in lights: _I'll lead_ to those long ago dance classes to the wedding to their marriage to Mark, always ending there, on what she did to ruin everything. He slipped past her before she could stop him to open the cabinet on the other side of the trailer.

Attempt over. Which brings her to last night, the setting for:

 _The Third Attempt._

Last night, she only beat him home by an hour or so – which was less of a daisy petal and more of a shock.

She was sitting up in bed, reading, because she's still human even if she's pregnant and exhausted: she wasn't going to fall asleep over the _Journal of Fetal Pathophysiology,_ not when her former fellow published an article on sacrococcygeal teratomas she'd been waiting to read. She had a pen in one hand to jot notes in the margins, keeping track for when she emailed Tara to congratulate her.

And then she heard his key and there he was, looking so exhausted himself that he might as well be pregnant too. He said something noncommittal like _hi_ or _hey_ , that's all, nodding toward her, and she forced herself not to analyze whether he was disappointed she was still awake.

She fiddled with the pen while he shrugged out of his coat, trying to think about how to start this.

 _Hey, Derek, did you happen to notice I missed a round of PMS?_

She could only imagine his response to that.

And then she steeled herself to tell him, to say _something_ , the one thing she's never said before in more than sixteen years of talking to this man.

All she said was his name – just _Derek_ , maybe a little hesitantly. That was all it took for his face to settle into visible lines of something like resignation. Tired resignation. _Addison, I just walked in the door,_ that's what he said. Like she wasn't watching when he walked in. Like she was something he had to gather strength to deal with.

Fuck all the daisies, she said _okay, sorry_ and he downed his drink and then gave her a barely-smile, three-percent apology, Derek Shepherd style. He asked her: "Can it wait?"

And she almost laughed. Out loud she said _yes, of course,_ and needless to say … she didn't tell him last night.

So that's three.

But it's also true that she's still not sure what she would have said in the hospital hallway, the first day, if her husband had been willing to listen to her. Regardless, he cut off that conversation before she could say anything at all. Half-credit seems fair.

There you go: three and a half. Three and a half missed chances.

And now, this morning, she's alone again.

She pours her own coffee, in her pajamas, and revisits last night's conversation. Derek's question, in particular:

 _Can it wait?_

What else could she have said? … _um, only about 33 more weeks, honey, and then even the king of indifference is going to have trouble ignoring what's happening._ Then again, this is the New Derek, the husband she deserves, the one who can't bring himself to look at her. She could probably be crowning right here in what passes for their marital bed and Derek would sigh that put-upon sigh, _Addison, what do you want from me?_ She'd ask him to cut the cord: _can it wait? I just walked in the door._

And then he's the one _just walking in the door_ , Doc barking joyfully at his side.

"Good morning!" He's smiling, actually smiling, and her hand is frozen over the metaphorical daisy because she's uncomfortably certain his good mood is less because of her and more in spite of her.

She returns the greeting and then Doc is all over her with enthusiastic affection and damp paws. It's impossible to resist his sheer doggie _love_ and god knows she needs it anyway. She cups his muzzle and he licks her hands and scrambles up on his hind legs, trying to reach more of her.

"Doc, no." Derek frowns at her. "Don't let him jump up on you."

"Why not?" she asks.

"Well, that … for one," he says, pointing at her pajamas, as Doc lowers his front paws and runs to Derek, and then back to Addison, apparently unable to contain his happiness at seeing them both at the same time.

"Oh." She looks down. "Well, they're washable."

"And if he jumps on you he'll think he can jump on everyone."

She doesn't respond; Doc is jumping up on her again, and she doesn't stop him – he's happy to see her and she needs that right now; she can't even be embarrassed that it's coming from a dog so blindly loving that he'd undoubtedly greet Joseph Stalin – or even Cruella de Vil – more or less the same way.

"Who's a good boy?" She rubs his muzzle as he pants with delight.

"I'm still wondering," Derek says, sounding amused. He actually stops to kiss her on the cheek as he passes her, full of morning energy, and she feels a little tingle as one more petal floats down from the daisy. There's no _he loves me_ and hasn't been for a while, but … _he hates me not_ is worth something.

"Doc is good," she says, still in what the Derek who liked her would call her _dog voice_ , feeling a little defensive. "You are, you're a _good_ boy," she tells the dog directly as he pushes his cold wet nose into her hands and rubs his damp fur on her pajama pants.

"Of course he's a good boy." Derek stops to scratch an appreciative Doc behind the ears. "He just … has some bad habits, that's all."

"He did live in a house of interns," she reminds him. "Interns are nothing but bad habits."

In the past, Derek might have smiled at that; then again, in the past, he hadn't yet screwed an intern. (Well, except for her, and that doesn't count because they were both interns.)

He doesn't smile now.

He looks at her for a moment. "Habits are temporary, at least," he says.

Yeah. Hopefully interns are too.

She remembers that she was going to pour his coffee, do something … _wifely_ as she prepared to tell him the news, but her hands are occupied with the dog and he's pouring his own cup. He drinks half of it in one long sip.

Doc has settled down enough now to lie on the floor with his paws over her feet; there's something sweet but also a little embarrassingly familiar about his desire for closeness. He's a dog, so it's cute, but – hell, maybe she should try this the next time Derek is preparing to walk away. Would that work, if she did? If she just lay down on the floor across his feet, let her tongue hang out, and vibrated with contentment simply to be in his presence?

 _Dignity, thy name is Addison._

She looks down at the dirt on her pajamas. "Why is he so muddy, anyway?" she asks. "Another old shoe on the trail?"

"Funny you should ask. Doc and I had a big morning." He grins at her over his cup of coffee but there's a _just you wait_ quality that leaves her less anticipatory and more apprehensive.

He hands her his half-full mug – okay, she's still his wife, she'll take it – and then opens the trailer door.

"Derek?" she calls as Doc's ears prick up, a little confused. "What are you – oh, _no_ ," she says as she sees what he's holding when he braces the door open again with one booted foot. Sees … and smells. "Don't bring that in here!"

"Where else am I going to bring it?" Derek asks, as if it's perfectly reason to start the morning with an armload of absolutely revolting dead fish. "Banner morning," he says cheerfully, "three. Three! That's rainbow trout for breakfast, lunch, and dinner."

"I never eat breakfast," she reminds him, "as you know, and I guess I'll just starve for the rest of the day."

"Addison." He frowns. "You like fresh fish."

"Yes. When someone else catches it and cleans it, not right in front of me, and – ugh, they're _looking_ at me."

Derek studies the fish, including their repulsive eyeballs, his expression amused. "They're not looking at you. But your ego is, as always, impressive."

 _Look who's talking_ , but fine, there's a reason they used to get along so well.

"Can you just – clean them outside the bedroom?"

He opens his mouth and then closes it again. _Gotcha_ , she doesn't say. He can't argue they're not in the bedroom, because the trailer is nothing but … trailer. One non-room with no dividers between bed, couch, table, fridge, stove, or the practically visible resentment draped over all its contents.

"I'm cleaning them here," he says, indicating the kitchen, "but I'm willing to cook them outside."

She should agree; he's actually in a good mood. She should say, _sold,_ or something equally lighthearted, shower and let him act out whatever this fisherman fantasy thing is that's apparently serving as his midlife crisis. Keep him happy and then actually _tell_ him.

Except the smell of the fish is starting to turn her stomach. She stumbles away, making an excuse about showering.

"So was that a yes on breakfast?" he calls after her as she turns on the water.

..

Seattle is great.

He loves Seattle.

Seattle is why he's whistling as he prepares to clean the fish he caught just this morning at the edge of his own breathtaking property, green and glistening with dew. Isn't it everyone's dream, living somewhere like this?

Well.

Everyone's except the person who insisted on living here with him, who's currently taking her usual indulgent shower despite his semi-regular reminders of water limitations. Which means he probably has about ten minutes before he's subjected to a lecture on how much she hates, in the following order:

* the shower in the trailer  
* the trailer, full stop  
* freshly-caught fish  
* the woods  
* the rest of seattle  
* and pretty much every other place in the world except for a few approved neighborhoods in Manhattan and, weather permitting, the Hamptons

For someone who loved their old life so much, you'd think she would have pressed pause before she blew the whole thing up.

But no, it's easier for her to blame him for everything, to martyr herself on some of the most beautiful land in Seattle, to hate the trailer.

Hate, she said on a different morning, about the trailer, _hate, hate!_ Like that: twice.

"I hate the trailer."

He looks up, still distracted, halfway through the second fish. Her voice, like he's summoned her with his thoughts. He'll have to work on that. She sounds resigned rather than enraged, but the message isn't exactly a surprise.

"Yes, we've all read the memo." He indicates the shower with a flick of the knife he's holding. "Did you leave any hot water for me?"

"Probably not," she grouses, leaning against the wall as she towels dry her hair, "but whose fault is that?"

"Presumably mine … like everything else. Isn't that right?"

She looks amused for a moment. "See, we agree on some things."

"Just not the trailer," he reminds her, returning to the fish.

And yes, he knows it's not the trailer she hates.

He may not have his wife's obsessive need to take apart every sentence, every interaction, but he still knows that. She hates Seattle. She hates giving ground, she maybe hates him, although she says she loves him, she hates change and surprises and losing control. She hates watching him clean a fish, even though she likes watching him open a skull.

"Derek."

He looks up.

"Can you please just – it's disgusting," she says, and he furrows his brow, offended. Addison, who's never blinked at a bodily cavity, fluid, or disfigurement, acting like an innocent rainbow trout is somehow too graphic for her. Ridiculous. "Can't you do it outside?" she asks, her tone too close to a whine for his liking.

"We live in the woods," he tells her heartily, admittedly somewhat to annoy her – it works, of course – "and this is what people do in the woods."

"So go do it in the woods, then."

He sighs. She's determined to spoil his good mood – no surprise there.

Fresh spring morning, bracing air, a vigorous walk with Doc, a peaceful hour of fishing … all of that to come back here and be pinned under her arched brow watching her judge him.

"You wanted to live in the trailer, Addison. This is the trailer."

"Mm. No." She shakes her head. "What I wanted was to live with you. You, for some reason I can't figure out, live in this trailer, and refuse to live anywhere decent, so I don't really have a choice."

"Everyone has a choice," he says, and sees her roll her eyes – her typical response when he's forced to try to be reasonable enough for both of them.

"Then can you please _choose_ to put those fish somewhere else?" Her voice is high and tight.

"Don't take it out on the fish." He raises his eyebrows. "The fish haven't done anything wrong."

"So marry a fish, then, Derek," she snaps, "if you think it'll keep you warm at night."

He bites back a reply about how she hasn't been doing much to keep him warm at night herself.

"That's not a bad idea," he says instead. "Fish don't nag. Fish don't complain about every little thing, and fish definitely don't sleep with their husband's best friends."

He dangles the fish a little closer than necessary to emphasize his words and she covers her nose and mouth with her hand, looking like she's trying to keep from retching.

So she's graduated from ruling the world's passive-aggressive to queen of drama this morning.

"Oh, would you just give it a rest," he sighs.

She looks like she's preparing a retort but then she covers her mouth again, disappearing behind the bathroom door.

At first, he purposefully doesn't rise, calling her bluff. They've had some legendary standoffs this way in the past, but he's not going to be late for work over it.

He returns to the fish, hearing water running, a flush, more water and then – fine, he washes his hands before he checks on her. Not entirely to stall; he's well aware that if she's actually sick, attempting to hold her hair back with fish guts isn't going to improve her mood.

"Addison?" He raps on the closed door.

After a moment, it opens. She's holding a toothbrush. Her face is flushed, her eyes a little watery.

" … so that's a definite no on the trout?" he jokes weakly.

She points the toothbrush at him. "Go away."

He frowns. "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing," she sighs. "But you smell like trout, so you can please just – go over there?"

He follows her gaze. _Over there_ isn't very far, as she would normally point out. But he goes, and he cleans up the fish, disposing of the parts he doesn't need and refrigerating the rest. When Addison emerges a few minutes later she smells minty and looks more put together.

"Thank you," she nods toward the cleaned-up counter, "for that."

He fishes a bottle of water out of the fridge and tosses it.

"And thank you for that too." She takes a long sip, and then a longer breath.

He studies her face for a moment. What's going on here – was this a new level of dramatic? Addison has never shied away from theatrics to make a point.

"You know, Addie, next time, you can just say, _Derek, despite not blinking an eye at necrotic flesh for the last fifteen years, I can't handle a harmless little trout without reverse peristalsis._ "

"The thing is, Derek, I did say that." She sets the water bottle down. "But it wouldn't be much fun for you if you actually listened to me, right?"

"Forget it." He's annoyed all over again. A moment of kidding around and she's back to nagging him. "I'm going to head in." He pauses. She's just standing there, looking at him. "You're all right," he confirms, not quite adding a question mark.

She tilts her head. "What if I say no?"

Okay, he walked right into that one. Wearily, he massages the back of his neck.

"It's too early for these games, Addison."

"Too early, too late. It's always too something."

"I'm leaving." He dares to cross the foot of space between them to kiss her cheek. He presses the bottle of water back into her hand. "Here. Practice keeping this down first. We can work up to the fish."

She looks at him for a moment. "Stop saying fish."

" … good-bye to you too."

..

All those years of rolling her eyes with Naomi at the false presentation of morning sickness in the media and here she is, greeting the day with her head in the toilet like a freaking cliché.

Her head in the chemical toilet of a trailer, which is – something she never wants to think about, ever again.

Ever.

She's not manipulating him, just – maybe a three-second conversation that isn't glib or laced with resentment for her very existence, that doesn't culminate in his reminding her that even though he _agreed_ to this reconciliation, he doesn't really want her around at all? Is that really too much to ask, before she tells him?

Besides, it's early. Very early, still.

She hasn't heard a heartbeat.

She hasn't had a blood test.

But as she's told many an anxious patient, today's early pregnancy tests are actually extremely accurate.

… that, and she took three of them. Dark pink, every time. The same specific hormone that colored the stick is the one that sends women both fictional and non-fictional crouching over toilets and wastepaper baskets.

The fish was a reminder that Derek isn't done yet reminding her how little he values her comfort, how little room he's willing to make for her in his new life.

But her reaction to the fish was a different kind of reminder.

Even without a blood test, she feels the gut-level reassurance of her nausea, the presence of hCG.

 _Keep going, baby. Even if I don't deserve you._

..

"I …am on your service today."

Meredith is standing in front of him with a slight smirk, looking professional in her white coat and holding a stack of charts.

"You're on my service? Since when?"

"Since George convinced Agarwal to let him in on his TMR," she says. "Which could have been mine, but … ."

"But you wanted to throw O'Malley a bone." Derek studies her face, concerned. "Meredith. Don't hand him procedures because you feel guilty. You don't need to do that."

"Except I really might need to do that." She sighs. "Turns out guilt – is kind of a powerful thing."

He grimaces. "Yeah," he says, looking down at the floor for a moment.

When he looks up Meredith has a rueful expression. "So you had a good morning too?"

"She hates the trailer," Derek says, not bothering to identify the _she_. "She hates the woods. And she hates fish, apparently enough to induce vomiting. Which is her loss, really, because I caught some beautiful rainbow trout this morning."

He's not sure why he's telling her. Maybe he'd like her to be sorry she missed out. It's not her fault she had overnight call, but it was a particularly lovely morning out on the trail, and he was alone.

"Addison threw up?" Meredith asks, which isn't what he expected her to focus on. "Your wife threw up this morning?"

"Yes, apparently, but I didn't actually – " He stops. "Wait, why are we talking about this?"

"I don't know." Meredith shifts the charts in her hands, then pauses, looking at him.

He tilts his head, trying to read her face. "What?" he asks finally.

"Just – Addison threw up this morning," she repeats.

"Yes. I know that. I was there, and I'm not sure we need to relive it."

"Derek." Meredith lowers her voice. "Is she – do you think she's – "

He lowers his voice to a matching whisper. "Do I think she's what?"

"You know." Meredith's hand inscribes a sort of half circle in the air.

"Crazy?" he asks, trying to interpret the gesture.

"No, Derek, _this_ is crazy." Meredith moves her hand up next to one ear and circles a finger. She moves the palm of her hand down and arcs it over her midsection. " _This_ is – "

"Oh, _that_." He cuts her off hastily. "No. No, definitely not. There's no way."

"No way?" Meredith asks, raising an eyebrow.

He makes a face at her. The less they talk about his sex life, the better.

"Addison is ... very careful," he says when he sees she's still waiting for an answer. "You don't – " He pauses.

A half a dozen memories are flitting through his mind, unprompted. Addison stopping everything to take her pill, which she could throw back easily without water. Addison leaving bookmarked articles about rhythm failures on his pillow for almost a month after he dared to use the phrase _pull out._ Addison the weekend he forgot to bring condoms to the beach house and she had just finished a course of amoxicillin. They argued about it, he might have called her ridiculous – or was it obsessive? and she stormed out, only to come back and spend the rest of the evening three feet away, refusing to let him touch her but detailing what she was prepared to do to him – for him, whatever – if only he'd had a better attitude. The standoff lasted until the morning, as he recalls.

 _You don't know her_ , that's what he was about to say.

Meredith is still looking at him.

He remembers her question: _Do you think things would have been different, if you'd had kids?_

"It's not possible," he says simply.

"What, you think she was faking?"

"No. I don't think she was faking." Addison is a terrible faker; of this, he's certain. "I do think she's dramatic, and I think she hates the trailer, and who knows how much she had to drink last night."

 _Nothing in moderation, especially moderation_ , isn't that her motto?

He frowns at Meredith, who's still looking at him with her eyebrows slightly raised. "What?"

"Nothing," she says. "Just – your wife threw up this morning."

"Yes. And that wife is an OB," he reminds her, "who's spent years pointing out that morning sickness is only confined to the morning on television shows, or in books written by men."

Meredith looks a little amused at this.

He studies her face for a moment. "Getting back to surgery – I may not be able to offer you a TMR, but I have some pretty interesting cases today, if you'd like to give me a chance."

 _If you'd like to give me a chance._

He regrets the word choice as soon as he says it. Meredith looks away for a moment. His hand, at his side, moves uselessly up and then back down again.

"Meredith," he says quietly.

"Dr. Shepherd," she responds before he can continue, and her tone is gentle but corrective, her message clear. They move on to their first case of the day with no more discussion of his marriage.

..

Today, assuming her generally perfect calculations are correct, she's at seven weeks and six days of gestation. Which is counted from her last period, not the date of conception, which would have been somewhere in the vicinity of fourteen days later. Two bonus weeks. But in fetal parlance, she's at seven weeks and six days.

Which is almost eight.

 _Eight weeks._

It's a milestone, and one she feels guilty about not being able to share with her husband. Except, of course, she's not sure how much he'd want her to share it.

The thing is that Derek wanted kids. Derek always wanted kids. They _talked about it_ , that's what they told people who asked. It sounded better than _argued over it_ or _fought over it_ or _occasionally tore each other apart over it._ There are some _talks_ she'll never forget – _you'd rather be a big deal in the OR than a mother!_ and then a hundred smaller conversations, reminders to be careful, always careful.

Derek wanted kids, and they _talked about it_ , and she wasn't ready.

And eventually they stopped talking about it.

They stopped arguing about it, they stopped fighting over it, and they found other ways to tear each other apart – culminating, of course, in the night Derek left her in New York.

Eight weeks.

An excellent obstetrician can find a heartbeat with relative ease at eight weeks' gestational age. And if she's being modest, she'll put herself in that category.

Seven weeks, six days.

Five charts, four consults, three patients, two post-ops, one bottle of water that's not nearly as useful as coffee and here she is.

Her heart is pounding.

But it's not her heart preoccupying her today.

Which is why she finds herself checking the log for a spare exam room. Just to check, just to be sure. She's not going to tell anyone here before Derek, that wouldn't be fair. For just a moment, she imagines asking the nursing student who accidentally diagnosed her pregnancy, to perform a quick TVS. _Hey, Kylie, you did such a good job with the Tdap, now you're ready to shove an ultrasound wand right into Satan's lair and_ –

"Dr. Shepherd?"

She whirls around, heart pounding, but no one can hear her thoughts. It's just a nurse with forms for her to sign and then she's excusing herself because the empty exam room won't wait forever.

She's just going to check. Just going to confirm. And she _just_ has a ribcage so it's going to be very difficult to perform her own endovaginal, but she's notorious for being able to locate fetal heartbeat before most of the other OBs in her career. They didn't call her the Doppler Queen for nothing.

Hopefully that holds true for the heartbeat inside her.

She pulls the curtain around the table and then it's a slightly complicated dance of pushing down her skirt and tucking the bottom of her blouse into her bra band – still better than wearing a gown, and if she knew she would be doing this, she would have worn a looser skirt.

She grabs a fresh glove for the equipment, feeling a little like a criminal, setting the screen with _Jane Doe_ parameters.

There you go: Addison Shepherd isn't the one sitting alone in an exam room to verify a pregnancy she can't work up the courage to share with her husband. A pregnant Addison Shepherd … that would be unexpected. Unprecedented. Scary, even. _Addison Shepherd_ is living in the middle of the woods three thousand miles from everyone she knows because she screwed up her life so badly that her husband couldn't stand to live on the same coast.

Jane Doe, though? Jane Doe is factory-new. Fresh. Hasn't made a single life-altering mistake.

"Cold gel," she says out loud now as if she's talking to a patient, a little joke for herself that's half procrastination and then she's drawing a deep breath, a lungful of air, and she's crossing her fingers that she's still _Doppler Queen_ like she was in New York.

She's psyching herself up without really believing it: _You can do this. Addison, you can do this._

There's a moment of dead silence when her own heartbeat is so loud she's not sure she could hear anything else.

And then there it is.

The infamous _galloping of horses_.

Fast, pounding, reassuring.

Proof of life.

Tears spring to her eyes. The pink lines, the nausea most of the morning, she believed them but here it is: incontrovertible proof that she's not alone in her body anymore.

The same sound she's played for so many first-time expectant mothers without ever getting bored of their reactions: shock and tears and _oh my god it's so fast_ and _I can't believe this_ and _honey do you hear that, it's our baby_. Because there's often a partner there, too. Listening with them. So many times, over and over, in the course of her career.

But this is the first time it's been _hers._

The other time, the last time, she didn't hear it. Finding a heartbeat is a requirement for the procedure – it's basic logic, you can't end something that never started, but it was tactfully limited to a visual and _you don't have to look_ , that's what they said, but she felt like she owed it that much. There was no galloping of horses that day.

Today, though.

It's loud and powerful, filling the room. It's reassuring and terrifying all at once.

163, she reads.

Perfect.

Twice as fast as hers. The fluttering she hasn't seen yet. The start of something.

She closes her eyes, just listening.

And then opens them, her own starting to speed up. Did she hear something? Is that someone at the – it can't be, but she pulls the curtain back just in time for the door to open and the person on the other side to freeze halfway into the room.

She's holding a doppler to own bare skin, her clothing in disarray, and now Meredith Grey is standing there, holding a clipboard, staring at her like a trapped rabbit.

Staring at her while her baby's heartbeat – that 163 BPM perfect eight-week heartbeat – echoes through the room like a confession.

Proof of life. Incriminatingly so.

"I … thought I locked the door," Addison stammers before she can stop herself.

 _Then again, she thought she locked it the other time, too._

* * *

 _ **To be continued (of course). You have all been so generous, but please keep it up because your enthusiasm and loveliness is why this outline is now 70 pages. Whatever your thoughts on who just startled her mid-exam, I can promise you that she won't be the only one who knows for long. I, too, am excited for Derek to find out (and I already know how, so yeah, that's not really fair). I hope you enjoyed this chapter - thank you for reading and I hope you'll review and let me know what you thought!**_


	4. Every Woman's Dream

_**A/N: Thank you so, so much for your reviews. I should really be doing something else right now, but after your awesome response to this story, I figured you deserved Chapter 4 as a happy-end-of-2018 present. I hope you enjoy it!**_

* * *

 _ **Every Woman's Dream**_

 _Gestational Age: Seven weeks, six days  
_ _People Who Know So Far: Three (including one embryo and one intern, terms that are often interchangeable but not in this case)_  
 _Unsuccessful Attempts to Tell Husband: Three and a half_  
 _Unsuccessful Attempts NOT to Tell Husband's Ex-Girlfriend: One (unfortunately)_

 _.._

* * *

For a moment after Meredith Grey appears ... time freezes.

"Close the door, Grey!" she barks frantically as the reality slams over her – then rolls her eyes and hisses, "I mean with you _inside_ it," as the intern prepares to leave.

Grey looks like she'd prefer to be on the other side of the door, and Addison can't exactly judge her for that. She's already grabbed the paper from the table to wipe the gel off her abdomen and is hastening to shove her blouse inside her skirt and zip it up but she's not exactly decent.

She wouldn't really blame Grey, if she ran.

But she doesn't: she comes inside and closes the door.

"Okay, now lock it," Addison prompts.

"We're actually not supposed to – "

"Don't recite regulations, Grey, just lock the door!"

The intern looks like she's considering answering back. Which would be well deserved, in fairness. Something like: _you care an awful lot about locking the door now when you couldn't be bothered before._

But she does it.

Meanwhile, Addison's already shut off the Doppler but the baby's pounding heartbeats still echo in the air.

"Um … sorry," she says after a moment, not sure whether it's for snapping at her about the door, for confronting her with evidence of her pregnancy, for being pregnant in the first place, or just in general … for showing up in Seattle and killing the buzz she remembers perfectly well of having all of Derek Shepherd's attention focused directly on you.

"It's okay," Grey says. This is awkward for her too, certainly. "The log said the room was empty," she adds.

"Yes. I know what the log said." Addison sighs.

Meredith Grey.

Seriously?

 _Of all the intern gin joints in all the towns in all the world …_

Addison glances at the monitor. And sees Grey's gaze skate there too.

 _Jane Doe._

Now Grey is looking at her.

Waiting.

Okay, time to practice saying the words. Not like there's any mystery left. She might as well just … say them.

Here goes:

"I'm – "

But she doesn't finish the sentence; she can't because she's lurching to her feet and stumbling into the attached bathroom. She's sinking to her knees, her body contracting painfully, her stomach emptying itself first of water and then, when she's still not finished, bile.

Distantly, she can feel someone behind her, drawing her hair away from her face as she retches and holding it back.

Finally, she slumps over the commode and tries to catch her breath. Her head is throbbing and vomiting hasn't helped as much as she'd hope with the nausea.

Someone is talking quietly to her, but she can't hear it over the sound of her pounding heart.

She concentrates on breathing and then the room comes back into focus, the cold tile under her legs.

"Are you okay?" Grey asks from somewhere behind her.

"I'm great. I'm _great_ ," she repeats hoarsely, her throat sore. "I mean … doesn't every woman dream of the moment her husband's girlfriend finds out she's … ?"

Her voice trails off. _Pregnant_ , just say it, but she doesn't.

"Ex-girlfriend," Grey corrects.

"Semantics," Addison croaks, gripping the sides of the tank as a wave of dizziness hits her. Between the chemical toilet and the exam room – oh well, she can always chop her hands off later.

"Don't get up too quickly." Grey has her hands under her elbows now, helping her ease away from the commode but leaving her sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall.

"Be careful, I'll crush you," Addison offers weakly, trying to sound like she's joking. Not like she's been stealing glimpses of the other woman's little bird bones. Wondering through her pounding headache, even just for a second, if Derek misses her very different body. And then feeling guilty about it, because Grey's really doing overtime here as a good Samaritan and Addison would really like to think of herself as the type of feminist crusader who doesn't think things like _skinny bitch_ in the workplace but then again she's also a human, so ….

"Thanks," she says quietly.

Grey is tiny, there's no doubt about that … but she has a good grip.

"I'm stronger than I look," she says, shrugging a little.

That must be nice.

As for Addison … she's fairly certain she's weaker than she looks.

Grey, meanwhile, is still in Samaritan mode. Or intern mode. Or _making-up-for-screwing-your-husband_ mode, because she's at the sink now wetting paper towels and passing them tactfully down to the vomitorium so Addison can mop her face.

She takes her time wiping her face, her neck, letting the cool water soothe her. Grey disappears and comes back with a cup of water, which she drinks gratefully, and a package of plain crackers.

"Thanks."

Grey nods. She's leaning against the open bathroom doorway.

"You're pregnant," she says quietly.

"What gave it away?" Addison presses her fingers into the tight muscles of her neck. "Was it the Doppler or the vomit … or what I'm now thinking might be _minor_ mood swings?"

Grey just watches without saying anything.

"Sorry," she says, for the second time, and the other woman just nods.

"Derek doesn't know," Addison admits. "But I, uh, I was going to tell him. I _am_ going to tell him."

Grey looks away for a moment.

"I'm not … I'm not telling anyone yet," she says as if it's a set plan and not four days of sheer world-spinning confusion, "so if you can please not tell – "

"I'm not going to tell him," Grey says.

"Not just him." Addison sighs. "Your – the others," she says, waving a hand to get across _that hyena pack of interns who'd love to get something else up on Satan._ "I, uh, I already have enough people doing the whole … staring and whispering thing when I walk by."

"Yeah." Grey looks rueful. "I get that."

"Great." She tries not to sound sarcastic. _It's not Grey's fault, it's not Grey's fault._

Too bad Derek isn't here to remind her that it's _her_ fault.

"I won't tell anyone," Grey is saying her now, her voice annoyingly reassuring, "I can't tell anyone, even if I wanted to – I'm technically treating you right now."

Addison frowns. "Says who?"

"I brought you water." Grey gestures to the cup. "I brought you crackers. I gave you towels. That's transactional, it's treatment. You could sue me."

"Interns aren't very idealistic these days," Addison comments, massaging the throbbing point in her forehead with two fingers. "That, or Richard's first-day-of-work speech to the interns isn't as inspiring as it used to be."

Grey almost smiles and then she does too.

 _God_ , her life is strange right now.

"Are you feeling better?" Grey asks.

 _Than what?_

She makes a non-committal shrug.

"The crackers might help," Grey suggests, and Addison has to bite back a reply about accepting medical advice from an intern barely older than the embryo inside her … but she manages, and she manages to keep down two small crackers, too.

They do help, a little.

Grey is just looking at her.

"I _am_ going to tell him," Addison says, a little defensive, not sure why she feels the need to say it. "I was going to tell him, it just wasn't …." Her voice trails off and she sips a little more water to soothe her aching throat.

"Dr. Shep – Addison," Grey says, her tone infuriatingly gentle, "you don't need to explain anything to me."

If only that were true.

"Well." She looks down, adjusting her blouse. The collar is damp from the wet paper towels, or at least she hopes that's what it's from. "I appreciate that … Dr. Grey."

 _Dr. Grey._ But what is she supposed to call her? Sure, this particular intern might be _Meredith_ when Addison and Derek are arguing about her in the trailer, but right now – despite all appearances, including the fact that she's improbably splayed on a cold linoleum floor in a tight pencil skirt after her husband's ex-girlfriend held her hair back over the toilet like an efficient sorority girl – now, they're at work.

"And I appreciate your, uh … your discretion," Addison adds.

"It's my job," Grey says. She glances at her blackberry. "I should actually get back to work, if you're – "

"I'm fine," she says quickly.

She even moves her mouth up at the corners in what she's pretty sure a smile looks like, she says _thank you_ one more time politely like the good little Greenwich girl she's supposed to be, and then she's alone again.

She's standing up, re-locking the door, and fixing her makeup and hair in the unflattering bathroom mirror.

And then she's just staring at her reflection.

So … this is her life: pregnant, and the only other person who knows … is her husband's ex-girlfriend.

At least she's pretty sure it's his _ex_ -girlfriend.

She and Derek are married, after all. And married people don't keep secrets from each other, right?

..

Meredith looks a little flustered when she finds him at the nurses' station – nothing major, a few wisps of hair around her face, just a little … rumpled, and he studies her with concern, closing the chart he was holding.

"Are you all right?" he asks.

"I'm fine." Meredith gives him a brief smile. "I put a rush on Mr. Greenspan's labs, but there's a backup."

"Thank you." He smiles back at her. "Are you sure you're – "

"I'm fine," she repeats.

They review her next steps and as she walks away, he finds his mind wandering again to Meredith's absurd suggestion this morning that Addison was –

She's not, obviously.

But still. Addison, pregnant.

It's a concept he stopped considering … years ago, now.

There was a time when he was young, they were both young, and it was a far-off certainty: exciting, inevitable, but irrelevant.

And then there was a time when they were both not so young and it was off the table. Gone, just like that. Like an empty place setting.

In between those periods, they _talked about it._ In the marital sense of _talked_ , that could be anywhere from resentful references to passive-aggressive needling to all-out red-faced yelling fights to the simple exchange of a wordless glance.

The words changed. Their jobs changed. Their homes changed.

But at its core, the _talk_ remained the same: Addison wasn't ready.

There was always something in the way: first waiting for her to finish her residency – all along watching his mother try, sometimes successfully, to bite her tongue about the fact that each of his three older sisters spent at least nine months of her successful residency pregnant – and then waiting for her to finish her fellowship – and then, in one of their last and most vicious _talks_ , there was her second fellowship.

Before all that, before the conversation calcified into something hard between them, a space in their bed where another person could have fit – before that, before Addison was ready, he was ready.

Addison would remind him, angrily or sadly depending on her mood, what she would need to give up to stop her residency for a child. Just once, he knows, his mother recruited Liz – the oldest, officially, and the unofficial wisest – to Talk To Addison. Like that: in capitals.

All he knows about that incident is that his sister took Addison to lunch on a drizzly weekend afternoon the last year of her residency, on a rare day off, and his wife came home in tears. _You set me up,_ she said, and when he tried to wrap her in his arms she pushed him away. What he remembers is that her coat, her scarf – they were damp with beaded moisture he knew was from the rain outside but meshed so closely with her tear-streaked face that it seemed as though her whole body was crying.

He remembers that she softened to him eventually – she always did – and comfort turned to something else and he was buried inside of her, their bodies as close as two can be, when she reached up and framed his face with two trembling hands. _I need to know that I'm enough for you, even if it's just for now,_ that's what she said. And he was a good husband. Back then, he was a good husband. He did what he was supposed to do: kissed her fingers where they gripped his face, kissed away the tears marking her cheeks once again, held her trembling body, afterwards, and whispered reassurances into her tangled hair.

They stopped talking about it.

..

"Look – there it is."

Her patient, who has stayed remarkably perky considering she passed out in a bus shelter, stares round-eyed at the screen. "It's okay? The baby's really okay?"

"The baby's great. See that?" Addison gestures with one gloved finger. "There's your baby's heartbeat."

"Ooh." The patient looks wistful for a moment.

"You want to hear it?"

"Yes!" There's that perkiness again.

Addison wields the Doppler, and the pounding sound of the baby's heart fills the room.

Her patient giggles. "It's so loud! And fast!" She pauses. "Is it too fast?"

"No. It's perfect."

Her patient laughs again, then chews her lower lip a bit. "I haven't told Brendan I fainted. Can't call him 'til his shift is over and he's going to be so freaked out."

"It's very normal to feel some dizziness in the first trimester," Addison reassures her. "Your hormone levels are changing, widening your blood vessels to make sure your baby gets enough blood … but that means your blood pressure gets lower. And that can make you feel dizzy."

"Oh." Melanie considers this.

"You're looking out for the baby, in other words," Addison tells her.

"That's cool."

"Isn't it?" Addison smiles. "Let me just get one more – "

But her patient, apparently reassured, is beaming now, and she wriggles, moving the wand.

"Melanie … can you hold still for me for just another minute?" she asks patiently.

"Sorry.

"It's okay." Addison smiles at her patient. It _is_ okay. Other people can be excited about their pregnancies.

"Anyway, so Brendan noticed that I wasn't, like, _cycling,_ " her patient continues chatting as Addison moves the wand carefully inside of her, apparently ready to return to the story of the baby's father. "Not 'cause I wasn't bitchy, I mean, I wasn't but that's because that's PMS but what he actually noticed was that I wasn't," and she lowers her voice like she's about to curse, " _ovulating._ "

Addison smiles weakly.

"…you know, because it makes me, like, want to do it all the time."

 _Charming._

"Yes, that's very normal," Addison says, although she has a brief flicker of wondering whether she should have pursued some nice specialty where people's sex lives and babies wouldn't be in her face 24/7. Like podiatry. Or … the circus.

"Brandon is really tuned in to me," her patient is saying serenely. "He noticed before I did!"

 _Just keep rubbing it in._

"He sounds like a very attentive partner," Addison says instead, in a tone no one – okay fine, maybe Derek back when he used to listen to her – would know is less than sincere. She withdraws the wand. "How does he feel about the pregnancy?"

"Literally over the moon," Melanie beams.

 _That's literally not what literally means._

"How wonderful." Addison withdraws the wand. "You can get dressed now, Melanie. Everything looks good. I want you to try to eat breakfast for the next few weeks – that may help with the dizziness. Snacks during the day. And try not to stand up too fast – even when the bus finally gets there."

"Got it," her patient says, sitting up with a great rustling of paper, Addison hovering a hand just in case. "Brendan's gonna like this – he loves making me waffles in the morning!"

 _Of course he does._

"Dr. Shepherd?" Melanie asks once she's scooted off the table, holding wads of paper in her hands.

"Yes?"

"Do you have kids?" Melanie's face is bright and uncomplicated, and then it falls a little. "Oh, sorry, is that, like, too personal?"

"It's fine," Addison says tightly. "And, uh … no, I don't have kids."

"Oh, that's too bad," Melanie says. "You'd be a good mom. You're good at explaining stuff."

Goddamn it, now her throat is tight.

This never happens in podiatry, she's almost certain.

"Well. That's a nice thought. Thank you." She draws the curtain. "Take care, Melanie. Remember – breakfast."

..

"Can you grab my fingers?" Meredith asks as Derek watches from a foot away, smiling reassuringly when she glances at him. She has a good rapport with patients, Meredith. He can see that as a teacher, not just a … friend.

"Great. Now I'm going to … ."

He's listening, not tuning out the familiar words of the exam.

"Dr. Shepherd?"

Meredith is glancing at him. As he watches, she repeats the test, indicating the gaps in her field vision. He takes out his own penlight.

"Tell me again what medications you've been taking?"

"Ganostantin," she says.

Derek glances at Meredith. "Who prescribed it to you?"

"It's like a hormone thing or whatever."

Ah. Fertility treatments.

Derek turns to Meredith. "Page OB. See if they can get an endocrine consult for us."

Meredith nods, turning to the door.

"Ms. Davis? Whoa, hey." Derek puts a hand on her shoulder as she starts to get up. "I need you to sit still for a minute longer for me, okay? Dr. Grey and I want you help you get sorted out and make sure you feel better."

"The drugs are good," she says, sounding tired. Her voice is a little slurred. "It's a lot of drugs … but it worked."

"What do you mean, it worked?" Derek's heart speeds up. "Ms. Davis? Are you – " at her nod, he calls out:

"Meredith!"

She turns back, a hand on the door.

"Forget OB. Page Addison."

She arrives with a click-clack of heels and a billow of her lab coat just like always.

"Hey," she says quietly when he meets her at the door to catch her up.

There's no trace of this morning's illness, or whatever it was. She's focused entirely on the consult, getting information from him efficiently before she turns and strides to the patient's side.

"Ms. Davis? I'm Dr. Shepherd." Addison smiles down at the patient. "Can I take a quick look at you?"

Derek watches her work. She's calm and reassuring, using Meredith effectively as she checks the pregnancy. He notices the way she directs her – Addison has always liked teaching, even if it's uncomfortable watching her … teach … in this particular capacity. Unless he's mistaken, Meredith looks a little uncomfortable too, but she handles the patient well.

Addison doesn't rush, answering the patient's questions, and then she leaves Meredith with the patient and gestures Derek into the hall.

"I've seen this before, a number of times," she says when they're alone. "The patient is still supplementing with PIO, but her body is making enough progesterone now that she's reacting to the increase, and she's change was too fast for her RE to notice. But the pregnancy is progressing normally."

Derek doesn't respond.

"What?" Addison asks, a suspicious note in her voice.

"Nothing," he says. "Just, uh, thank you."

"Oh. Well, you're welcome." She pauses. "I called in an order and she should be fine, but I want to review the labs when they come back to see if we should admit her. Someone can monitor her for a few hours? Grey, or … ?"

He nods.

"Page me if anything comes up."

"Good. Thank you," he says again. "You're, uh, you're working," he adds.

"You noticed." But she doesn't seem offended.

"So you're feeling better." She always works; he knows this.

She nods.

 _Your wife threw up this morning._

"You, uh, think it was a bug this morning, or something you ate, or … ." His voice trails off.

She looks at him for a moment. His blackberry buzzes, glances down, and when he looks back up she's looking at him. He waits for her to answer.

"Maybe," she says after a minute. "Then again … throwing up is a perfectly natural reaction to the stench of rotten fish first thing in the morning."

"Rotten?" He frowns. "That trout was swimming peacefully in the lake an hour before you started insulting it."

"Peacefully." She looks amused. "Until you murdered it."

"Addie, you do realize sushi isn't grown in a lab, right? So those fish were swimming once too?"

"I do realize that, Derek, but there's a reason I didn't marry a sushi chef."

"Because you hate fish," he prompts, "when it's convenient to hate fish."

She points a finger at him. "Didn't I ask you this morning not to say _fish_ again?"

"You did," he admits, "but I don't recall agreeing."

Her mouth twitches. "Well, do you recall – "

"Dr. Shepherd?"

They both turn around at the interruption. It's Meredith, leaning her head out of the patient's room, holding Ms. Davis's chart.

She looks from one of them to the other. "The endocrine consult called me back … if you still want it."

Derek glances at Addison, who nods. "I still want it," he tells Meredith, "but have the consult talk to the other Dr. Shepherd first."

Meredith looks from him back to Addison. "Sure. Of course."

"Thank you, Dr. Grey," Addison says, before turning to Derek. Her eyes scan him up and down. "Dr. Shepherd," she adds, politely, before she click-clacks away down the hall, her hair swinging a little with the speed of her stride.

Addison never let a little thing like ridiculously high heels get in the way of how fast she walked … how fast she expected everyone to walk, from residents – who did their best to keep up – to pedestrian tourists at Christmastime – who did not.

"Dr. Shepherd?"

He glances back at Meredith, reorienting himself. _Dr. Shepherd_. It sounds … wrong, somehow, but he doesn't want this to be hard for her.

"I'm going to check on the labs."

He feels his face soften. "Good idea."

..

… make that _four_ and a half unsuccessful attempts to tell her husband she's pregnant.

And fine, so telling him in the hallway right after he asked her about her uncharacteristic nausea wouldn't exactly have been perfect for the baby book, but it would have been _something._

He was – okay, not warm exactly, but he wasn't that cold either. He did sort of ask how she was feeling. With enough sincerity that she tossed off a couple of _he hates me not_ petals and realized she wasn't even annoyed about this morning anymore.

But then his blackberry buzzed, and the moment was lost.

As it is, he still doesn't know. And Grey does … but at least that awkward three-way consult was mercifully free of any more homages to _The_ _Exorcist._

She's going to tell him.

First she's going to be stalked by pregnant women, apparently. All day.

Although, in fairness, she did sign up for that. But that's not the point.

The point is that he needs to know. She just wants it to be … right.

Somehow.

Maybe because everything in Seattle so far has felt so wrong?

Whatever the reason, she can admit – grudgingly – that it would nice to be able to tell him on her own terms. Without that cold muted anger from him, with his attention focused on her and not just for a consult either. On _her_ , the person. Her, Addison.

His wife.

So. How to tell him.

She has some ideas:

 **One:** _Set up the doppler and have someone tell him to come find her. He walks in to hear the heartbeat …_ but that's a little too close to how Meredith Grey found out, and while she's not totally horrified by the idea of this modern friendship thing with her husband's ex-girlfriend … she's not _French_ , either.

 **Two:** _Buy a darling little onesie. Put it on a trout._ Okay, it's possible she's still a little annoyed about this morning

 **Three:** _Corner him after a successful surgery when he's all happy and arrogant and whisper it in his ear._ A few issues there: she'd have to watch to make sure it was successful, and that's time-consuming when she has her own patients. Depending on how messy the procedure is, getting close enough to whisper in his ear might be difficult … and rather unhygienic. Not to mention the other people in the scrub room. She imagines ten people listening. _Satan's pregnant?_ Yeah, that won't work.

 **Four:** _Ask him for a consult, then be alone in the exam room when he gets there. Have a portable ultrasound in there too._ _Where's the patient, he'll ask, and she'll wait for him to figure it out. His eyes will get wide with the question and she'll nod slowly, confirming it. He'll be so excited he'll lift her off her feet and –_ my god, this one is embarrassingly … soppy. Mushy. She cringes.

 **Five:** _Offer to go fishing with him._ Yeah, she's not quite that desperate yet.

… but check back tomorrow.

* * *

 _ **To be continued, of course. Look, I don't want to be shameless, but you know how much I love hearing from you. Reviews power my fingers and encourage me to avoid other tasks I should be doing to write instead! (Yes: shameless) So show me some love and I'll get another chapter up by the end of this week. Shameless. That's me. I hope you enjoyed the chapter - thank you for reading, and happy new year! Here's to another year of Addek Revolution!**_


	5. Correlation or Causation?

_**A/N:** **You guys are seriously awesome. I know it's Sunday morning (here, at least), but I hope that counts as the end of the week, since you definitely deserve this update.**_ **Thank** _ **you so, so much for your reviews and happy new year, all! I hope you enjoy this long chapter.**_

* * *

 _ **Correlation or Causation?**_

 _Gestational Age: Seven weeks, six days  
People Who Know So Far: Three (including one embryo and one actually halfway decent intern)_  
 _Unlikely Feats of Strength by Said_ _Halfway Decent Intern_ : _One  
_ _Unsuccessful Attempts to Tell Husband: Four and a half and counting  
.._

* * *

The whole first trimester exhaustion thing?

Yeah, they weren't kidding about it.

And by _they_ she really means herself, since she's been discussing it with patients for her entire career. But while she's warned other women about it, described it, reassured her patients it would improve … it's still different when it's you. It's new when it's you.

Like when she was a teenager and Missy and Hadley both lost their virginity before she did, and she heard everything about it, knew everything, enough that she actually ended up advising Heather when her time came – but then when she and Chip finally fumbled to fruition in the back seat of his car … it was somehow totally different.

What was it her attending used to say, back in Manhattan, when she was a resident? _Like being hit by a truck._ That's how she described first-trimester exhaustion.

And that's why it makes sense she didn't notice it the other time.

The other time, the first time, she was already living outside her body when she realized she was pregnant, so preoccupied with the burning embers of her life that nothing else registered. She already felt like she'd been hit by a truck.

This time, the exhaustion is forefront – once she wraps up her consult on Derek's pregnant patient, it drives her through the rest of her day. The board tells her husband is still in the OR when she wraps up her last patient and leaves before anyone else can commandeer her time.

She drives back to the trailer with some pride in her ability to navigate these unfamiliar roads; all those times she and Archie turned off the headlights to sneak one of the cars out without the staff seeing … maybe it was meant to be.

Her car door slams and she stands for a moment surveying the trailer, the land around it, one last _how the hell did I end up here_ before she and her secret stagger up to the trailer. She goes inside just long enough to set down her bag and then she's settling on the porch with the one creature in Seattle who seems to like her somewhat unconditionally curled at her feet, and prepares to dial the call she's been waiting for.

Something curls in her stomach. Wrapping around the secret. Something warm – excitement?

"Sav … I'm pregnant."

It's not lost on her that those are exactly the words she said the last time – not that she planned it, it just is: _Sav … I'm pregnant_ , and she hears Savvy inhale now exactly the same way she did then.

"Oh, Addie."

That's the same too. _Hat trick._

"Are you … okay?" Savvy asks down the phone line, her tone careful.

And now it's getting uncanny.

Is she okay? She's scared. She's confused. She's exhausted.

She rests a hand on her still-flat stomach. She hears like she's still in the little room that pounding, reassuring heartbeat. There's that butterfly again: _excitement._

"Yeah. I'm okay," she says quietly.

"That's good," Savvy responds gently. "That's good, Addie." She pauses. "What did Derek – "

"He didn't. I, uh, I haven't told him yet. He doesn't know."

Addison hears her friend's gentle inhale.

"Does anyone know?" Savvy asks.

"Well, you," Addison says. "And me. And maybe the janitor who cleans the bathroom by the seventh floor psych wing."

"The psych wing?" Savvy sounds a little nervous.

"No, nothing like that. I just went there to – get away from surgeons. When I was … peeing on a stick."

"Ah." Savvy sounds a little relieved.

"And Meredith Grey."

"Meredith – you mean _Meredith_ , Meredith? Slept with your husband, Meredith?"

"The very one," she says, reaching down to pet Doc, who's nosing her hand hopefully.

"How did that happen?"

"Believe it or not," Addison recrosses her legs, "she caught me listening to the heartbeat. And then she had a front-row seat to some well-deserved nausea."

"Oh, Addie." Savvy's voice is soft, apparently not concerned with her nausea. Soft, and even emotional: "You heard the heartbeat?"

"Yeah." She feels tears prickling the back of her eyes.

 _It was incredible and I wish Derek had been there but I just don't know how to do this._

"But you haven't told Derek," Savvy says finally.

"No. Not yet."

Savvy's quiet for a moment. Maybe she's remembering what Addison told her, the other time.

The other time, the first time … Savvy went with her.

She's that kind of friend.

Held her hand, told her everything was okay, brought her back _home_ , if you could call the brownstone that, made her tea and distracted her with stories about internal politics at her backbiting law firm to drown out the loud voice inside her head that sounded like Mark, the one that said, _Addison, don't do this._

 _You'll regret it, I know you will, I know you._

That was the part that hurt the most: _I know you._ Because in those days, those months in New York after her marriage exploded, she was fairly certain no one knew her.

She didn't even know herself.

But – _I know you_ , he said. _Please. Addison, please._

 _Please don't do this._

She did it.

And when it was over, when they wrote her a prescription for painkillers she never filled, all she could think of was that she was so numb she wouldn't even feel it if they sliced off a leg. Savvy slept over and swore like she used to in college that she'd never tell anyone, listened to her: _I do want a baby, I do, but not like this, I want a baby with Derek_ , and at some point in the night it turned into _I want Derek_ , and she woke in the morning stiff and cramping and remembered that Derek wanted nothing to do with her.

Savvy was also the one who put her in the cab to JFK the day she left for Seattle – the Manhattan version of the kind of friend who drives you to the airport.

"I'm happy for you, Addie," she says now, softly.

It's Savvy, so of course she remembers. She gets it.

Addison presses a hand to the bridge of her nose, forestalling tears.

"Tell me _everything_ ," Savvy says, like she used to, and Addison takes her through the tetanus shot and the overpowering smell of the fish this morning and the awkwardness of having her husband's ex-girlfriend turn into her unexpected pregnancy confidant. Savvy likes details and she slows her down if she speeds up too much, so she takes her time until the whole story unfolds.

A curl of warmth ignites inside her having Savvy inside the circle of trust.

 _Finally_.

"No more fish in the trailer," Savvy pronounces when the story's over. "I'm not a doctor, Ad, and even _I_ can figure that out."

"Tell Derek that," she grouses.

"Or … you could tell him you're pregnant, and he'll understand."

"I'm going to." Addison sighs. "I just – I want to do it the right way."

 _In the right moment,_ that's really what it is.

"Addie, if you keep losing your breakfast in front of him, you may also lose the luxury of telling him on your own terms." Savvy pauses. "You're not going to get _less_ nauseated, right? Not for a while?"

"Right." Addison tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "You have the first trimester down, Sav."

"Well, Weiss's sister is pregnant again, and I watched her leave the Seder table so many times to throw up that my father-in-law started calling her The Ten Plagues."

But this is New Derek – she could throw up in his shoes and he wouldn't notice. Not Old Derek, who never left the hotel room when she had food poisoning that time on the Riviera Maya, ignoring the sun and the beach to sit on the cold tile floor with her, holding her head in his lap when it was too heavy for her to lift.

"You're worried about telling him," Savvy prompts.

"He's not exactly my biggest fan right now." She keeps her tone light, like she's kidding. Like it doesn't hurt at all.

"He's trying," Savvy says. "Isn't he?"

"Maybe on the inside," she mutters.

"Addie, come on," Savvy says gently. "You need to give him some time. It's not like he's mad that you dragged him to the opera or threw out his old fishing vest. You –"

"I know what I did, Sav. And if I ever forget, Derek is here to remind me. You don't have to do it too."

Savvy doesn't respond.

"I'm sorry." Addison sighs. "It's not your fault. It's _exhausting_ , that's all. Living here is exhausting. Hoping Derek will stop hating me someday is exhausting."

"Derek doesn't hate you, honey. He wouldn't be trying to make it work with you if he did."

She wants to believe that.

She really does.

..

His drive home is solitary, mercifully quiet. He's alone with the moonlight, energized just enough from a successful surgery to keep him from tiring en route. The lack of noise as the roads turn more rural is comforting.

Peaceful.

What are the odds the peace will extend into the trailer?

It's his own calculus, and he's faintly optimistic: despite her dramatics this morning, Addison seemed perfectly healthy at the hospital, perfectly herself when she was examining Ms. Davis. He forgot himself for a moment, in that room, watching how masterfully she handled both the patient's care and even, he can admit, her teaching role. She said herself she was feeling all right, didn't she?

She's fine.

She's fine, and he's trying … and he doesn't have to be perfect. Not by a long shot. Nor is it fair for him to be the one under the microscope.

He has some sense this isn't entirely fair, maybe, but then again fairness has had little to do with his life since the moment he pushed open the door of the bedroom in New York he never wants to see again.

As he pulls up the drive toward the trailer, he can already make out the shadowed shape of his wife on the porch, settled in one of the chairs, Doc at her feet. He feels himself tensing automatically.

He takes his time parking, easing out of the car. She's on the phone, which he notes with both a little relief and a little flash of guilt at that same relief as he approaches the porch that used to be his.

She smiles tentatively at him under the low porch lights and then puts her hand over the bottom part of the phone the way you would over the receiver. It's actually sort of charming for a moment – a relic of a very different sort of phone, the kind that doesn't fit in the palm of a hand.

The kind they used to have.

 _Used to_ is everywhere, now that she's here. The tricky thing is that hating her, forgetting her, whatever it is he thought he could do – _trying_ , even – would be easier if she weren't tied up in every single shading of his past.

"Hi," she says.

She's scanning his face in that way she does even more here in Seattle, gauging his anticipated reaction. He feels a bit guilty for that too, but pushes it down. Their current situation isn't exactly his fault.

He nods in reciprocal greeting and she glances at the phone.

"I'm, uh, it's Savvy," she says.

He just nods again. He's knows he's supposed to ask, _how's Weiss_ , supposed to say, _give her my best_ or _we should all get together,_ he has his lines and she has hers but he's not on stage.

Not tonight.

She keeps talking:

"I can call back later," she says, gesturing toward the phone with her free hand.

"No need." He turns his key in the lock and enters the trailer mercifully alone.

He doesn't feel alone for long, though.

The trailer has changed markedly since Addison moved her suitcases and her boxes and her shoes and her body into it – taking up the space that was his and marking the whole place with the scent of her. One sixth the light scent of … something: perfume, shampoo? And the rest just something inherent. Whatever it is, it's stronger than what came before. _New_ , that was how the trailer smelled before she moved in.

He liked it that way. Or at least he thought he did.

Since Addison moved in, he hasn't been able to reclaim the old smell, or even change it to something new. Not even freshly-caught rainbow trout – which even he can admit is a bit fragrant for first thing in the morning – can change things. Not enough, anyway.

He's trying.

He _is_ trying, as much as anyone could be expected to do – more, even.

If his wife is never satisfied, always wants more than that … well.

He opens the cabinet to make himself a drink.

..

"Savvy says hello."

Her husband glances up from the drink he's pouring as she closes the trailer door behind her, effectively sealing off the cool dark air from the porch.

Inside, the lights are low, but she still finds herself blinking a little in the comparative brightness. Doc greets her eagerly and she rubs his muzzle, scratches behind his ears, enjoying his enthusiasm.

The other man in her life is less happy to see her. No surprise there.

He doesn't respond verbally to her greeting – she's not even sure she expected him to – just gives her a little nod and takes a sip of his drink.

Her fingers skate the edge of a nonexistent daisy petal, Savvy's words be damned: _he hates me._

But then he does tilt his chin ever-so-slightly in her direction, eleven-years-married for _want one?_ She's supposed to gesture in turn and accept the drink: that's her part.

She doesn't; she shakes her head, changing the game, and he lifts an eyebrow, looking unflatteringly surprised. He's already pouring the shot that would have been hers, apparently having assumed her affirmative response.

Ouch. You'd think she was an alcoholic.

"I don't always drink," she says, admittedly defensive.

"If you say so." He looks down at the tumbler of amber liquid in his hand and then drains it himself.

 _Thanks, honey_.

There's nothing in his posture – somehow defeated and challenging all at once – suggesting now's the moment to deliver the news. What was it she wanted? Just a moment or two where it felt – _okay_ , if not good. Like it did this morning.

Fine, she's exhausted anyway. She should make a cup of tea. She should –

"What's wrong with you?"

He doesn't sound hostile, but he doesn't sound particularly worried either, and she realizes she's tipped her head back against the wall, eyes closed, while Doc leans companionably against her legs.

"Nothing." She opens her eyes to see her husband half looking at her. _Half_ sounds about right. "I'm just tired," she adds, and he nods, already turning away. He has that look on his face he gets, like he's annoyed with her for interrupting his train of thought by … what, existing?

Check tonight off yet another Not the Right Time to tell him. Apparently it's a _he hates me_ sort of night, whether because the trailer reminds him of his annoyance with her this morning or something else, and she's too tired to question it.

Particularly when she's sober.

So she'll just let him brood.

..

But it turns out she's wrong – yes, Addison is occasionally wrong – because he's muted and blurry after his shots, not aggressive or even annoyed. And when she leans past where he's seated on the narrow couch to try to get to the insufficient cabinet space over his head – you can't do anything in this trailer without leaning past each other – he rests a hand on her hip with some semblance of interest.

When she draws back he's looking up at her, his eyes a little glassy but very blue even in the low light, and no, she's not going to tell him she's pregnant right now. She's not going to tell him _no_ either.

"I thought you were tired?" he asks lightly when she smiles down at him.

"I'm not that tired."

She lets him pull her down on his lap and enjoys the closeness, the attention, even for what it probably is: distraction.

"Wait." He has half her blouse unbuttoned when he eases her back by the shoulders to look at her face. "You're not going to throw up on me, are you?"

She runs her fingers through his hair and then leans in close to whisper in his ear, her tone purposefully seductive: "… no promises."

He laughs underneath her and it feels even better than his hands, a full _he hates me not_. She closes her eyes and sinks into the moment. Those hands that have touched her almost half her life are practiced. Every inch of her knows every inch of him and there's no substitute for that. No second place.

So even if it's a little … workmanlike, and even if his eyes look distant, distracted, when she opens hers, it's still worth it.

Isn't it?

He trails her into the bathroom after, when she's brushing her teeth, and he's half asleep already in typical Derek post-coital fashion, planting a tired kiss on the side of her neck while he waits for a turn at the sink and it feels so … normal, so old school _them_ that for a minute things almost feel like they could be … okay.

For a few solitary moments she lies in bed alone, Doc curled peacefully at her feet, while Derek attends to his routine. She listens to rain drum the trailer and feels the pleasant vaguely-achey feeling of exercised muscles, and then her husband is standing over her.

"Addie …" he prompts, the diminutive not enough to soften the obvious message: _you're in my space._

And she remembers that this is Seattle, and she has no side of the bed here, nothing official, other than _the side Derek doesn't want._ She's permitted to warm the mattress while he's otherwise occupied but when he's ready for bed that's another story.

She moves over wordlessly, staring at the ceiling and reminding herself to try to keep the moment a positive one, or at least a neutral one, but –

"So much for afterglow," she can't help saying as he settles in next to her.

He sighs in exaggerated fashion. "And here I thought I'd tired you out too much to nag me."

It's the kind of comment that might have been an affectionate tease, back in Manhattan, but feels a little too close to truth here.

"Forget it," she says, curling away from him onto her side. At least her tetanus soreness has settled down enough for her to sulk with relative ease.

He doesn't say anything in return but she can hear his irritation with her just in the sound of his breaths – along with all the weighty combination of comfort and discomfort that comes from knowing someone so well just their intake of oxygen can communicate paragraphs.

"Addison," he says finally, and she knows he can tell she's awake, and that she's waiting for him to speak.

She doesn't say anything.

"You know, you don't make things very easy," he tells the back of her, after a few moments of silence.

"I could say the same about you … honey," she tells her pillow.

Out loud. She's pretty sure it was out loud, but either way, he doesn't respond.

At this rate … she's going to end up waiting until the kid is born to tell him.

 _Great_.

..

"You're in a good mood," she observes as the breeze moves her hair.

"Why wouldn't I be in a good mood?" Derek asks, crouching to pick up a perfectly-sized stick and tossing it for Doc, who bolts enthusiastically down the trail.

Meredith doesn't respond.

"It's a beautiful morning," he points out, gesturing to the spring weather around them, the clean green scent of the fresh air. "On a beautiful trail."

"With a beautiful dog?" she asks, smiling a little as Doc bolts back to them, leaping up on her legs.

Derek reaches over to rub Doc's head, amused. "That's not the first adjective I would think of for Doc, but … sure."

"He's a good dog." Meredith is scratching his ears.

"He is a good dog. After a fashion." Their fingers collide in Doc's thick fur and Derek finds himself pulling his hand back as if he's been burned.

He clears his throat. "So. How are things with you?"

"How are things with me?" Meredith echoes. She glances at him. "Um. Things are … busy."

"Internship will do that."

"You still remember?" she asks, her tone teasing, and he glares at her with mock offense.

"I'm not that old."

"Not this morning, maybe." She smiles a little. "Not with your good mood." She pauses. "Oh," she says quietly.

He finds his brow crinkling. " _Oh_ , what?"

"Oh … nothing."

"It doesn't sound like nothing." Doc brings him back the stick, he wrestles it away after much joyful growling – mostly from the dog – and then hurls it again.

"It's nothing, Derek. Just … ." She raises her eyebrows slightly. "I guess you had a good night."

He frowns at first, not sure what he means. He doesn't have _good nights_ these days, and Meredith should know that, but her lifted brow – the teasing expression in her eyes – clears up any lingering confusion.

"I really don't need any detail," she says hastily, before he can speak.

He has a quick flash of memory – Addison standing above him in the low light of the trailer, smiling, the rough-smooth fabric of her skirt under his palms and the very familiar feel of her against him. Brushing her long hair back with both hands like he always has to when it's loose and she's leaning over him, laughing a little when they both end up tangled in it.

A good night? He chuckles a little, neither confirming not denying.

And then feels just as quick a flash of guilt, which he doesn't have time to pin to a source: guilt for what for some reason feels like … cheating, on the woman next to him, but with his wife? But that makes no sense. Or guilt for what he's doing now – but all he's doing is walking Doc with a friend, that's all he's doing, and if his sex life is a brief and euphemistic topic of conversation, what's wrong with that?

Friends talk about sex.

"Derek, it's fine," Meredith says now, amused. "I'm glad you're … satisfied."

"Who says I'm satisfied?" he asks, and his tone is light but discomfort settles around his midsection anyway.

 _So much for afterglow_ , that's what Addison said last night after he crawled into bed next to her – there's no pleasing her sometimes, no escape from her nagging him after what had felt like a reasonably nice interlude between them, and he was annoyed. Then why, in the moment, now, does he feel unsettled?

"No, really." She sounds like she's trying not to laugh. "It's good for you. Endorphins or – whatever."

"Mm." He keeps his own tone noncommittal, just holding out a hand to Doc, who bounds over with his stick, and trying to keep Addison's face out of the corners of his mind.

 _Friends walk dogs. There's nothing wrong with having friends._

"How about you?" he asks, glancing sideways at Meredith. "How are your – endorphins or whatever – these days?"

She shades her eyes with hand, watching Doc for a moment, then turns to him. "Maybe we should talk about something else."

He finds himself irritated.

"Maybe we should just head back," he mutters, waiting for Meredith to pick up on his tone and smooth things over – but she just shrugs neutrally, pivoting in place to head back instead of trying to reassure him.

 _Addison would have apologized_ , he thinks briefly, uncharitably, _she would have recognized what I was doing, and we could have stayed out on the trail._

As they walk back down the path, he tries to avoid the nagging sensation that the uncharitable aspect of that thought should really be directed more to himself than to Meredith. Is he really annoyed with his – with his _friend_ – because it's harder to manipulate her than it is his wife?

He doesn't like that thought either. He doesn't like what it says about him, how it makes him look, and he doesn't want to have to think about that on a beautiful spring morning, on a beautiful trail.

With a … reasonably good dog.

"Meredith."

She's a few paces ahead, and she turns back.

"We probably have a few more minutes," he says. He's willing her to hear her assent as an apology, but she just studies him for a moment.

"No, you were right the first time. We should head back."

He busies himself with Doc so he won't have to second guess things – this friendship is attractive because he _doesn't_ have to second guess everything, wonder about layers and subtext and all the nuances that make conversation in the trailer so weighty.

Still, though, he lingers outside the trailer door. Addison was sleeping when he left, curled on her side away from him, and he braces himself a little, not sure if he'd prefer her to be sleeping or awake when he returns. He feels an unwelcome – and undeserved, he's fairly certain – flush of shame as he recalls this morning's walk with Doc. If Addison knew what he said …

But it's an outlet. A friendship and an outlet and she doesn't need to know. What she needs, or at least what she claims she needs, is him: for him to try.

He can do that.

And then Doc leaps up on the door; his claws scratching loudly with such uncomplicated joy at the anticipation of going inside and seeing his mistress that Derek actually finds himself envying him.

..

"Addison."

Sleep is a warm blanket over her but she blinks awake, the heavenly scent of coffee wafting under her nose before she really sees anything. Her husband is sitting on the edge of the bed, looking windblown with mussed curls, mug in hand.

"What time is it?" she asks, blinking again with surprise when he tells her.

"You were tired," he observes, his tone neutral, holding out the mug to her.

"Yeah." She takes the coffee – god, it's good but still not as good as getting the cup handed to her in bed. _He hates me not_ , and the coffee is nice and strong … he's let her take over buying the beans, at least. "Thanks," she says, feeling almost shy as he continues to sit on the side of the bed.

She wishes she didn't have to do this, this – depressing calculus of their interaction, wanting to drink in having him this close but there's always math: if she's too eager, he might turn away with annoyance, but if she seems uninterested, he might turn away too, so it's a balance except the whole thing is exhausting … so she just drinks more coffee.

"How, uh, how was your walk?" she asks finally.

"My walk was fine." He takes the mug from her hand and sips it, then makes a face. Ostensibly they take their coffee the same way – it's convenient if nothing else, and an outsider would probably think it's true – but she knows and he knows too, or at least he used to, that the ratio is different enough to notice.

Doc jumps up on the bed then, without warning, and Derek puts up a hand to keep the coffee from splashing down on her. It makes her smile, and Doc licking her face does the same.

"Your alarm is going off," Derek says, sounding amused.

She tangles her fingers in Doc's fur, attempting to get him to lie down next to her, but he's having none of it, pressing his cold nose against her instead and making her yelp. "Snooze button didn't work," she says ruefully, sitting up. Doc looks pleased with himself.

Derek actually smiles at her, then stands up, setting down the coffee. "Come on, boy." He musses Doc's fur when the dog trots over to him, pausing to nose Addison's empty hand one last time. "You've made your point," Derek tells him, and Doc leaps obligingly from the bed, following Derek to the kitchen while Addison draws the covers down her legs.

He's in a pretty good mood.

Derek, that is – Doc is always in a good mood, making him the vastly superior roommate as compared to either Shepherd. Derek's the one whose good mood is worth noting. Halfway decent sex will do that, she supposes – it was nothing spectacular or even particularly notable but it was … something.

When she gets out of the shower, toweling dry her hair, Derek's actually _whistling_ , in the kitchen, pouring out a bowl of muesli.

"No fish today?"

"No fish today," he confirms, not even looking annoyed at her question.

"And yet … you're in such a good mood."

He pauses, spoon halfway to his mouth, and her stomach tightens as she wonders if she's broken the spell with her observation.

"And you're not reenacting _The Exorcist_ ," he says, his tone mild.

"Correlation … or causation?" Her smile is at least half relief, and she pads over to kiss him on the cheek before reaching for the carafe of coffee.

She drinks another half a cup – it's liquid gold, now that she's rationing it out, and crosses her fingers in the pocket of her robe that she continues to keep everything down this morning.

Her husband is standing there in the trailer's tiny kitchen, hips propped against what passes for a counter, still looking a little windblown and rumpled and she feels a sudden rush of affection for him.

Is now the time?

"Derek – "

"Did you get an update on Pamela Davis?" he asks; gesturing to the blackberry in her free hand. He's not cutting her off, not really, they started talking at the same time, but the moment is lost to their mutual patient.

"Um. Still monitoring BP," she says, taking one last longing-filled sip of coffee before she sets down the cup, "but no change overnight. P4's sloping down but we need to level it off."

"I was wondering something," he begins, before posing a series of interlocking theories about possible neurological implications, seeking her input, and she can't hold it against him because the thought he puts into his patients' care is one of the things she loves about him.

Does he love anything about her anymore?

..

Work isn't exactly a respite. Because her life isn't interesting enough already, she gets to work with Meredith Grey on a pregnant patient. Again.

Grey, the only person outside Addison and Savvy who actually knows about the pregnancy.

But this is Satan 2.0, the _kind_ one, who says _of course_ to Miranda Bailey when she mentions keeping Grey on the Davis case. She even smiles.

She walks the hallways with the secret growing inside her starting to wonder if she should have just bought a onesie to put on a trout after all until finally she catches the very familiar sight of her husband in a viewing room.

She peers around the open doorway – not even sure why, except that the fleeting warmth between them in the trailer this morning was _nice_ and she wouldn't mind a little more.

That, and she needs to tell him. She needs to tell him very soon. She needs a plan.

"Hi," she says pointedly when he doesn't look up.

He glances over briefly before turning back to the screen. "Hey."

"How, uh, how are you doing?" she asks and she walks into the room, feeling a little silly when she does. What's her grand plan? Dinner, she supposes, shooting from the hip, which essentially means … asking her husband out on a date.

"Busy," Derek says. He gestures to the screen. "Look at the size of this aneurysm."

"It's big." She draws breath. "Are you – do you think you're going to work late tonight?"

"You'd have to ask the aneurysm," he says without looking at her.

Right. Well, even the old attentive Derek rarely knew his exact schedule. So. Fine.

"Okay. So … I was thinking maybe we could go to dinner? Assuming you've wrapped up your case. Around eight, eight-thirty?" She keeps talking when he doesn't respond. Frankly, with this level of exhaustion the early bird special is starting to seem appealing, but she's not exactly ready to start eating at six. "Not the last place. I was thinking we could go to the other place, the one where you had the fish with the … ." _With the stuff_ , but she doesn't say it and he doesn't, as a small hopeful part of her was still anticipating, pick up on the word _fish_ or tease her back.

If he's noticed her silence, there's no sign. He's still staring at the screen, moving the mouse as he does.

"Derek."

"Yeah," he says without turning around.

"Is that a yes?" she asks, not hiding her impatience as perfectly as Satan 2.0 probably should.

He turns now – not all the way, maybe three-quarter profile. So that's still all she's worth these days, rote sex be damned.

"What?" he asks.

"What do you mean, what? I was just – " She exhales sharply. "Were you listening to me at all?"

His face closes, his irritation obvious. "I don't have time for this right now, Addison."

 _What else is new?_

"Then I'm sorry I bothered you."

"Addison." He massages the bridge of his nose. "Don't be so – look. I have work to do here. You have work to do here. Can you just – finish whatever this is so we can both get back to work?"

The back of her throat stings; she pushes down the image of yesterday's sweetly bubbly – fine, a little annoyingly bubbly – patient. The one whose partner was _literally over the moon!_ about her pregnancy. Noticed it before she did.

"Don't worry … it's finished."

She turns to leave, stopping when she hears him call her name, letting herself hope for the smallest second, but –

"You'll let me know if anything changes with Pamela Davis?"

Of course that's what he wants to know.

"Oh, I'll be sure to keep you updated." She sounds only the _teensiest_ bit sarcastic, she's fairly sure.

"Thanks," he says before he turns back to the screen.

"Don't mention it."

No, really … don't.

..

She busies herself with work after that oh-so-pleasant reminder that talking to her husband is sometimes unfortunately like talking to a very attractive brick wall – or it would be, if said brick wall had a history of actually paying attention to her and listening to her so that she just keeps coming back, still reeled in thinking today's the day those bricks are going to be focused solely on her.

Nothing like a little dumb hope to get you through the day.

"Dr. Shepherd?"

Oh, perfect. And to top it all off … she still feels like she's about to fall asleep on her feet.

With one deep breath, she pushes down the remaining sting of her husband's distraction, and any lingering embarrassment from yesterday's _Exorcist_ -reenactment.

"Dr. Grey. Did you get Pamela Davis's labs?"

Grey nods, holding up the folder in her hand, and Addison lets the intern update her on Pamela Davis's latest labs as they walk to the patient's room.

"What do you suggest we do next?" Addison prompts outside the closed door of Pamela Davis's room.

"Continue to monitor BP. Consider medicating if she's still hypertensive."

"With?"

Grey draws breath. "Methyldopa would be the first course now that her numbers are stabilized."

"Good." Addison glances at the numbers in her hand. "Potential downsides to medicating?"

"Hypotension is also a concern in pregnancy," Grey says.

Addison listens as the intern continues, nodding appropriately at _uteroplacental unit perfusion_ and _fetal circulation_. So Grey's done her homework.

"It must be hard."

Addison looks up at the change in topic.

"Balancing, I mean," Grey says. "With pregnant patients."

"All treatment involves a balancing analysis," Addison reminds her.

"But not between patients."

Ah. So Grey's spending enough time treating a pregnant woman now to consider what it is to have, in some ways, two patients at once … one of whom is completely dependent on the other.

"Every specialty has its own particularities," Addison says mildly, like she's talking to any ordinary intern. She rests a hand on the doorknob, wishing she could shake this tiredness. "I'd like you to explain Ms. Davis's results to her, Dr. Grey. Keep in mind hers has already been a medicalized pregnancy … but this is still a lot."

"Of course."

Addison holds on more tightly to the doorknob when another wave of tiredness hits her. It really is different, this tiredness: thick, logy exhaustion, the kind that makes you feel like you're underwater.

Grey actually _sounds_ like she's underwater, too; she's saying something, Addison's pretty sure, but it's incomprehensible.

"Sorry?" Addison waits for her to repeat it, but it seems as if Grey is moving in slow motion in addition to standing underwater; she has to listen very carefully to make out the words.

"Dr. Shepherd … are you okay?"

She opens her mouth to say, _of course I'm okay, I'm fine_ , but nothing comes out.

Grey is looking at her with concern for some reason, her head tilted, and then her little white-coated body fuzzes at the edges and starts moving backwards, further away, and Addison's last thought as the rest of her vision tunnels black is that Grey may have proven herself stronger than her miniature frame suggests but this – this is a whole new ball game.

* * *

 _ **To be continued. The good news is, much of the next chapter is done. Keep up being the best readers ever and I will do everything I can to get it up before I leave town on Thursday. And don't throw things (or at least not heavy things) - I promised you an Addek baby, and said Addek baby is fine ... but just because we know that doesn't mean everyone else does.**_

 _ **Late Season 2 Addek is so painful - I mean, so is early Season 3 Addek and, let's be real, ALL Addek, which is part of why we love it. I really liked how decent Addison and Meredith were to each other on the show. With the very small exception of a couple of petty moments from both sides (understandably), they handled it really admirably, I think. Meredith was kind to Addison when they had that awful conversation about whether Mer was sleeping with Derek (and Addison puts together, and we see just from her face because Kate is amazing, the provenance of the iconic shower sex). So yeah, I like that part of their dynamic. And this is the part of the season where I sometimes wanted to slap Derek for seeming so needlessly cold and distant and sometimes was touched by how ... couple-y they seemed, for lack of a better word.**_

 _ **All this is to say - I know it's a bit of a slow burn, but hey, for me, it's gonna be a quicker burn than usual. Stuff's happening, but it's not going to be long before Derek finds out. Hold on and keep reading and I can't promise anything (like Addison and her nausea), but I have a feeling you're going to like where this is going.**_

 _ **Thank you again for reading, and I hope you'll review and let me know what you think. This story has stayed at the top of the review queue because of your amazing response, and I love hearing your thoughts.**_


	6. Female Troubles

_**A/N: Happy (cold, cold) Sunday! Thank you so much for your reviews on this story. Your response is awesome, you are awesome, and I hope this story continues to be awesome for you. This is a long chapter, longer than I plan for the next one, but I am a couple days behind so you deserve it. I hope you enjoy!**_

* * *

 _ **Female Troubles**_

 _G_ _estational Age: Eight weeks on the nose  
_ _Baby is the size of a: Raspberry (in fairness, these fruit measurements are ridiculous – please don't tell Vivian Carlsmith – but they're also sort of adorable)  
People Who Know So Far: Four (including one embryo, one alarmingly strong intern, and one long-distance best friend – finally)_  
 _Unlikely Feats of Strength by Said_ _Alarmingly Strong Intern_ : _Two  
Unsuccessful Attempts to Tell Husband: … let's just say too many and leave it at that  
.._

* * *

She can't have been out very long – except that when she blinks awake she's lying flat on a surface much softer than the floor.

A bed. A _bed_?

A bed in a white room, and a woman in white is standing over her.

It's Meredith Grey.

 _Oh please don't tell me this is the afterlife._

She blinks a couple more times, just in case she's lucked out and this is just an anxiety dream.

… it's not.

"How are you feeling?" Grey asks.

"Awkward."

Grey actually looks amused. "I meant physically."

"Oh. Physically … I feel decent. I feel fine." Addison stretches a little bit – she's not sore, she must not have fallen, but she was standing up. "Wait. You didn't – "

Grey shrugs a little.

"Okay, you weren't kidding about being stronger than you look."

"Thank you," Grey says. "Look – you really should get checked out."

Addison sighs. "This isn't abnormal in early pregnancy." She starts talking again when it seems like Grey might interrupt. "I don't suppose you're up for sneaking in an ultrasound."

Grey sighs.

She didn't expect a _yes_ ... and truth be told, even if it's a little embarrassing, she always imagined waiting for Derek for the first ultrasound.

"Look … Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd, won't this be easier if you just tell Derek, and – " she pauses.

Grey doesn't ask the question – but the question is clear nonetheless.

Ouch.

Apparently Addison's not the only not-such-a-feminist at Seattle Grace, although she's not sure _Who's the Daddy_ is quite the same as her own annoyance at another woman's zero percent body fat.

The former might be a little more deserved.

"It's Derek's baby," she says quietly. "I _am_ going to tell him. I'm just trying to figure out the right way and … I'm only eight weeks LMP."

Grey nods – she doesn't apologize, which is probably fair, and Addison starts to sit up.

"Wait – you really need to stay down a little longer."

"Fine." Addison sighs. "Was that a no on the ultrasound?"

"I'd have to sign out the machine."

Addison sighs again. At least all this aggravation is getting her lots of oxygen.

"You've heard the heartbeat," Grey prompts.

"And so did you," Addison reminds her, wryly.

"… but no ultrasound yet. And no bloodwork?"

"No bloodwork." Addison pushes her hair away from her face. "What would you be testing?"

Grey furrows her brow slightly. "Your level of hCG," she says slowly. "Are you sure you – "

"What numbers are you looking for?"

"Um … at your gestational age … there's a broad range, but it should be peaking in the next couple of weeks. Anywhere between the seven thousands up to two-thirty-k."

Addison nods. "Very good. Standard levels pre-peak?"

"They vary widely, but the key is the doubling time between successive testing levels."

"Go on."

"… which is forty-eight to seventy-two hours' doubling time in eighty-five percent of normal pregnancies and are you seriously making me _round_ on you right now?"

"You're an intern, Dr. Grey," Addison says with dignity. "Every patient is an opportunity to learn."

"I thought you weren't a patient."

 _Yeah, but you also thought your boyfriend wasn't married, so …_

She fumbles for the remote control to lift the bed.

"Not so high – " Grey puts out a hand and Addison rolls her eyes but leaves the bed at forty degrees.

"You've done your first tri homework, Dr. Grey," she notes mildly.

Grey just nods. "Pamela Davis is six weeks and two and she's at 2200," she notes.

Oh, right. Grey has _actual_ patients. Something else to feel guilty about.

Maybe it's because she's finally sitting up a little, but when she looks at the intern again she notices the pad in her hand.

"What are you doing?"

"Records."

"Seriously?" Her eyes widen."Don't write down that I'm pregnant."

Grey raises her eyebrows. "You want me to create a false chart?"

"Not a false chart," Addison says, speaking very slowly as if to a particularly stubborn child. "I just don't want you to write down that I'm pregnant. And I don't want you to run any tests."

"I can't create a false chart," Grey says.

"I hate interns," Addison tells the ceiling. "I hate them. And not just the ones who sleep with my husband."

"I didn't know he was your husband then," Grey says.

"Don't remind me. And _don't_ write down that I'm pregnant."

"Fine. Just symptoms. Like syncope," Grey reminds her, ticking it off on her tiny little fingers. "Emesis."

"It's not morning sickness. Are you writing morning sickness?" Addison points to her pad. "Give me that pen."

She doesn't.

"You realize there's a box to check for every female patient," Grey says.

"Yes, I actually have some medical training myself," she mutters, even knowing it's not fair to be grumpy.

Grey doesn't look offended.

"My point is, it's _not_ morning sickness," she repeats firmly. "I was only nauseated because I had filthy trout shoved in my face yesterday morning that were basically still swimming and because my husband likes trout more than – ." She pauses. "Never mind."

Grey leans forward. "Look, I get that this is – a little weird, but I can get someone. Is there someone else you'd want to check you out? I'll be discreet. One of the MFMs, maybe?"

"I don't need an MFM."

"You're of advanced maternal age," Grey says.

"You did _not_ just say that."

"All I mean is – "

"Great. Now I'm nauseated again." Addison glares.

"I just know you and Derek are the same age, that's all."

Oh, even better.

Grey tries again: "With a geriatric pregnancy – "

"Grey!"

The intern looks at her.

"I appreciate your scraping me off the floor … twice … and I'm impressed, really, Grey, I think you're … disturbingly strong, you'd be great in a bar fight …." She stops talking. "I'm rambling."

The intern nods.

"My point is … you've been, uh, you've been great today and, uh, and yesterday, and I kind of hate that I like you right now," she says. "I mean, I'd like you more if my husband hadn't seen you naked, but I don't want to like you more, and I really, _really_ don't want to be reminded by you how _geriatric_ I am … that's about all."

"That's fair," Meredith says.

"No, it's not," Addison grumbles. "Stop being nice to me."

"I'm stopping." Grey looks down at her pad. "I don't have a choice. I have to stop being nice to you because you had a medical episode at work and – "

" – and what?" Addison asks warily.

"And the orderly who helped me is required to report it."

… and he doesn't owe her any favors because he hasn't, presumably, slept with her husband.

Okay. So an orderly knows that she passed out.

"But he doesn't know – "

"No, he doesn't know."

"Then what – "

"But the procedure is to call your emergency contact."

"My emergency – "

She stops talking.

 _Fuck_.

She looks from Grey to the chart in her hands. _Could the patient be pregnant?_ It's a standard question. _Pregnant? Nursing?_ Two little blank boxes to check.

But the answer is anything but standard.

"Derek can't find out right now," she says quietly. "Not like this." Not after their argument, not on a chart. Not when the last conversation they had was so cold. "I need to tell him in my own way, in a way that's fair to him and ... please. Meredith, _please_."

She watches as Grey looks down at her notes. Slowly, she nods.

Her sigh of relief is deep enough to tire her out. Grey leaves and she could just close her eyes, rest a little.

..

Her mind wanders instead of resting. What is she going to say when Derek shows up?

 _If_ , she reminds herself, not _when._ This is New Derek, for whom she's an obligation. He might leave a consult, but it's not like he's going to walk out of the OR for her.

Just in case, though … she should probably have some reason for fainting at the ready. That's assuming he asks, and doesn't just go with _I really don't have time for this, Addison. Can't you just faint later?_

She runs through some options:

 _ **Option 1**_ _: Female Troubles._ Sure, her husband is a surgeon, but he's still a man, and _female troubles_ never failed with the headmaster when she was trying to get excused from chapel – he'd do anything to keep her from elaborating. Come to think of it, this would probably work on Richard Webber too.

 _ **Option 2**_ _: Intern-Related Swooning._ Well, why not? Derek certainly claims to have swooned over Meredith Grey. One night in a bar and a couple months of sex and he's in love, fine, so Addison can swoon too. A few minutes with everyone's favorite intern and her magical intern pheromones and … swoon.

 _ **Option 3**_ _: Old-Fashioned Exhaustion._ This one's closer to the truth, except she actually slept later than usual this morning and while last night's marital activity was a reasonable cardiovascular interlude, it was nothing like what they used to get up to. And she never fainted then.

 _ **Option 4**_ _: Orgasm-Induced Vestibular Damage._ Tricky because her husband is probably _just_ arrogant enough to believe it – and admittedly he's pretty damned talented even if last night wasn't exactly his best work – but he's also a brain surgeon and confessing her pregnancy on an MRI consent form isn't quite the intimate, romantic moment one might hope for.

Intimate … romantic … at this point, she's just looking for a way to tell him that won't make things worse.

 _Put that in the baby book and smoke it._

..

"Dr. Shepherd?"

He glances up from the scans he's reviewing to see one of the patient liaisons. "Yes?"

"Do you have a moment?"

"A very brief moment," he says as patiently as he can. "I'm preparing for a procedure. What do you need?"

"It's the other Dr. Shepherd. I mean, Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd."

"I know who you mean. What's the issue?"

"She, uh … well … ."

..

"Addison."

She must have drifted off because when she opens her eyes, she sees her husband standing a few feet away.

"More poison oak?" he asks, raising his eyebrows.

"Not this time, no." She glares at him, or as much as she can glare while she's propped up in a hospital bed – on top of the covers, at least, fully dressed – and just woke up. "They shouldn't have called you, Derek. I'm fine."

"Clearly." He indicates the hospital bed. "What happened? Addison," he sighs when she doesn't respond. There's no malice in his voice, though. If anything, he sounds tired.

"Nothing. Well, syncope," she admits. "Minor."

He frowns. "You fainted," he says, like a layperson.

And then he picks up her chart and she feels her heart speed up.

His eyes scan with little reaction, and then he sets it down. She almost passes out again with relief. _Thank you, Grey._

"All right." Derek looks at her. "Are you going to tell me what's going on with you?"

She opens her mouth, a little.

 _Just say it_ , she begs her uncooperative lips. Maybe it's not worth waiting. _Tell him. Derek, I'm pregnant._

To her embarrassment, not only don't words come out, but she feels the first prickle of tears in her eyes.

 _Fuck._

"Addison." Her names comes out of his mouth sounding surprised this time, even a little concerned. She finds herself flinching slightly as he approaches, but all he does is prop a gentle palm on her forehead, and it's such a … parental thing to do that for some reason it just makes it worse.

Her eyes blur. That familiar tilt of his head above her, his face … those blur too.

She's not going to do this – she can't.

"I don't have a fever," she mutters, trying to get her emotions under control.

"Okay. Good." He glances behind him and then draws up the padded visitors' chair, just – easing down into it like he belongs there.

"What are you doing?" she asks warily.

"Sitting down," he says.

Yeah, that part she got.

When she glances at him his face is softer than she's seen it in a while.

And she has to look away again, staring at the ceiling, a little worried she'll cry if she looks at him again.

Rhythmically, she uses her right hand to twist the rings around the fourth finger of her left, hoping the repetition will soothe or at least distract her.

But she feels his hand cover hers, bigger and warmer, stilling their movements.

She looks at him uncertainly.

"What's going on, Addie?" He asks quietly, sounding genuinely curious … actually without resentment or accusation. "Does this have anything to do with the other day?" he asks after a moment, when she doesn't answer.

"The other day?"

"The – tetanus shot." He gestures with his free hand.

She's a little confused. As in, a reaction to the vaccine? "No. I don't think so."

"How about yesterday morning, with the trout?"

"No … that was your fault."

"See, now you sound more like yourself. A good sign." He gives her hand a squeeze and she closes her eyes briefly, relishing it.

When she opens them he's looking at her.

"I'm fine."

"Fine people don't faint," he says.

"Fine people do faint when they're under stress."

" … you're under stress," he repeats, mechanically.

"Of course I am. All surgeons are under stress."

"But all surgeons don't faint," he says.

"Well, surgeons whose husbands hate them are under extra stress."

There's a flicker in his eyes. "I don't hate you, Addison."

"Careful with the dirty talk, honey … we're still technically at work."

He actually smiles at that. First just a twitch of his mouth, and then a tried and true smile. It softens his face, his eyes twinkle, and she feels a primal rush in the middle of her body that she can't control.

 _He hates me not._

It feels good, better than last night's rote sex. Yeah, they used to have good sex, great sex – she could go on here – but they also used to have _fun_. She used to make him smile like this.

Tentatively, she smiles back.

Derek opens his mouth to say something, then pauses. She nods, a little hesitant, encouraging him to go on.

"You know, before I looked at your chart, I actually wondered if maybe you were … ." He inscribes a sort of half-circle in the air. He's not exactly in line for a second career as a mime, but she knows unfortunately what he means.

"If I was – "

He nods.

So neither of them is going to say it. _Pregnant._ It's a censored word, apparently, like this is network television in the 1950s.

She tries to smile a little more like it's a crazy suggestion. He's just … looking at her and her heart thumps inside her shirt.

 _Two hearts._

She swallows hard.

"Yesterday morning," Derek adds when she doesn't respond, with no elaboration.

Apparently they're only talking in the shortest phrases possible.

"Just a stomach thing," she says weakly.

 _When did this go from not telling him yet to telling him lies?_

… but she doesn't want to think about that. She has all too much experience with the way fears become secrets that grow into lies to sturdy to be cut down.

Derek nods, but doesn't say anything.

She just goes on, digging herself in deeper. _Stop it, Addie,_ but she can't.

"I'm, you know," she says instead, and then it's her turn to mime: this time, it's pretending to take a pill. Maybe mime will become their new form of communication – it's not like they're so great at the verbal kind.

"Right," he says, nodding.

She nods too.

 _More_ mime.

God, she has no idea how they got into this mess.

…okay, she does actually have an idea. And he's sitting there and he's actually looking at her, and – but she can't tell him now, while he's squinting over her chart and Nurse Baden is walking in and out of the room.

"You haven't fainted since medical school," he says.

"You remember?"

She says the words before she can censor herself.

"Of course I remember. You were everyone's hero for getting an extra forty minutes on Greenfeld's exam."

She makes a face at him. That was – a long time ago, a hot early-summer day, on little sleep and far too much caffeine. It was far less dramatic, but then again she was twenty-two years old. She hadn't had enough time yet to build a really scandalous life.

"Addison – "

"I'm waiting for a flu test," she blurts.

He nods, which leads to some mercifully neutral back and forth about this year's strain.

And then her test comes back, and it's negative, as she expected. Which means …

"… now I can go." Addison starts to swing her legs out of bed.

"Wait."

"For what?" She turns to Derek. He has one of her hands in his now and he's pressing his thumb into the back of it.

"Ow."

"You're dehydrated," he says without apologizing, a frown creasing his face.

Then he's talking to first one person and then the next, over her protests, and she's just sitting there in the face of all these _words_ , he's telling someone that she needs more water, and _can you bring Dr. Shepherd some breakfast before she goes back to the OR_ , all with enough twinkling in his eyes that it just makes people want to do things for him.

She knows how that goes.

"You didn't eat breakfast?" Nurse Baden asks her, sounding a bit too judgmental for Addison's taste.

"Dr. Shepherd never eats breakfast," Derek says without looking up from her hand, which he's prodding again.

She just grumbles a little to avoid verbally agreeing with him.

"Well, I think Dr. Shepherd is right … Dr. Shepherd," Nurse Baden says, smiling at her now. "You might feel better if you eat some breakfast."

And she leaves over Addison's protests.

"What do you have against breakfast, anyway?" Derek asks lightly when the two of them are alone again.

"Nothing, I just – " She looks at her watch. "I can't stay here all day, Derek. I have a job to do. And neither can you," she points out. "I'm not admitted," she adds when he doesn't respond. "I'm free to go."

But he puts out a hand when she starts to get up, resting it on her leg. "Not yet," he says.

" _Derek_."

He doesn't give in, though; they compromise on sitting the bed up nearly as high as it can go while he listens with fairly impressive patience to her list of productive things she could be doing right now instead of leaving an Addison-shaped print on the stiff mattress.

She rolls her eyes when an orderly knocks with a breakfast tray.

"Don't expect me to make this a habit," she warns her husband. "Seattle has already ruined my hair. I'm not going to let it ruin my figure."

He opens his mouth, then closes it again. "You hate breakfast," he says calmly. "Noted."

Except she maybe doesn't hate _this_ breakfast, because to her annoyance the banana actually tastes delicious and even the hospital oatmeal – which resembles to a troubling degree some of the medical waste they securely dispose of – tastes pretty good too.

"See? You don't always hate breakfast." Derek sounds smug, which is pretty impressive, really, when you think about it – taking credit for another person eating oatmeal and bananas. Briefly, Addison wonders what it would be like to have that level of confidence … of utter faith in your own right-ness.

She's fairly certain she would need different plumbing to accomplish it.

The thing is that she _does_ hate breakfast. Always has, from the sticky bowls of porridge her nanny used to give her to the cloyingly overwhelming spreads in boarding school and then college and those cloyingly sticky muffins from the coffee cart outside the hospital.

But of course the baby she's carrying is half-Derek. Half hearty-whole-grains-every-morning Derek.

And apparently her baby, her half-Derek baby, likes breakfast.

… she shouldn't be surprised that the two of them are already teaming up. Next they'll have her fishing.

Derek, for his part, just – sits there, while she makes her way through the oatmeal and banana and drinks most of a bottle of water that he points to wordlessly whenever she doesn't take a sip for a while. Truthfully … his solicitousness is making her feel a little warm, a little wobbly, but then again he probably just feels obligated.

She's put away a decent amount of breakfast by the time she pushes the tray to the side. Derek is fiddling with his blackberry, presumably sick of spending this much time with her. She fiddles with the bowl for a moment, finally speaking when he doesn't look at her.

"Am I free to go now, warden?"

He glances up. "Depends on where it is you're planning to go."

"Back … to work," she says slowly, as if he's hard of hearing.

Derek pockets his blackberry. "I think you should go home," he announces.

 _You mean back to the trailer where I don't even have a side of the bed. That "home"?_

"I worked a double shift with food poisoning when I was a resident," she reminds him. "I only had to run out of one OR to throw up and then I scrubbed right back in again."

"I remember. I was there." He pauses. "Those new residency regulations probably aren't the worst idea."

"If you don't mind a bunch of soft residents."

He smiles a little, like he's remembering their residency. She fists a hand on the white blanket so she won't reach out and grab him: _keep going, keep remembering when you used to like me._

"Don't worry, no one thinks you're soft, Addison," he says, "there's no need to reenact your greatest hits to prove it."

She studies the blanket on the bed again before she looks up. His eyes are so blue in this light – fine, in any light.

"You don't have anything emergent on your schedule, do you? And you're not on the board. Take the rest of the day off," he suggests.

 _Tell him. Tell him now. He's looking out for you._

"Is that to make sure you don't get stuck having dinner with me?" she asks, arching an eyebrow.

He blinks, and she kicks herself.

Hard.

Why did she have to bring that up?

But he doesn't look annoyed like he usually does when she rehashes old arguments.

He looks confused, and so is she for a moment until she realizes the reason for his reaction.

… it's because he doesn't remember that she asked him to dinner, before. He doesn't actually know she's rehashing an old argument.

What was that he said, in the viewing room, when she tried to ask him to dinner? _I have work to do here. You have work to do here. Can you just – finish whatever this is so we can both get back to work?_

"Addison?"

"Forget it. I was just kidding." She busies herself adjusting her blouse before she swings her legs over the side of the bed. "I'll be fine, Derek. I'm not planning to work late."

He stands, too, holding onto one of her arms as she gets to her feet, his other palm flat against her back.

"I'm okay," she says quietly when she's upright, and he nods, releasing her.

"Okay. Good." They stand there, a few breaths each, and then he extends a hand to brush back some of her hair, tucking a long strand behind her ear. His fingers linger on her cheek for a moment, surprising her.

"I'm glad you're okay," he says.

His eyes are very soft.

 _Tell him now._ _And for god's sake don't say anything else bitchy._

She draws a deep breath.

But wait. She just pretty much assured him that she wasn't pregnant. If she tells him now that she is, he's going to think she's nuts.

… okay, but even if he thinks she's nuts, the secret will be out.

… and so will the falsified chart, but she can deal with that.

She's going to do it.

She's going to do it right … _now_ … okay, on the count of three – he's looking at her like he's waiting for her to talk … she opens her mouth to say his name –

And then his pager goes off.

 _Fuck_. Of course it does.

He glances at it and makes a face. "Sorry," he says, leaning in to kiss her cheek.

She just nods.

He pauses. "You sure you're okay?" he confirms.

She nods again, not quite trusting her voice.

"Okay. Take it easy, please," he adds, "and if you don't feel up to driving, wait for me and we can go home together."

Her eyes sting a little when he leaves, though it's a toss-up whether it was _we_ , _home_ , or _together_ that did it.

..

"Sorry about that," Derek says, once he's dealt with the page – post-op crisis, averted – and then returned to Pamela Davis's room. Meredith is waiting for him outside.

"It's fine. How's she doing?"

"Pamela Davis?"

Meredith tilts her head. "No … Addison," she says.

"Oh. Fine. She says she's fine."

Derek considers _fine_ for a moment; Addison seemed sure of herself, but then Addison always says she's fine. That day in residency, with the food poisoning? _Fine_ , she said, she was _fine_ even though she was only a few shades less green than her scrubs. And that time in Mexico when she was sicker than he'd ever seen her, ghost-white and trembling – _I'm fine, Derek, you should go enjoy the beach, go spend time with the others_.

Meredith is still looking at him.

"She fainted," he says, aware he sounds like a layperson. Fainting is for wives, syncope is for patients. It's just one of those things. Not that _his_ wife faints – not in this decade anyway.

He can't quite read Meredith's expression.

"But you know that, because you filled out her chart."

She nods.

Which means …

"You were there," he says.

She nods again, looking a little uncomfortable now. Of course. It couldn't have been much fun for her – or Addison either, he can grudgingly admit, although Meredith is the innocent party here. Addison didn't mention it, though …

"What happened?" he asks, curious.

"… she fainted."

"I know she – " He stops talking. "Did she say anything?"

"Like – on her way down, you mean?"

"Very funny." Something about that image is a bit troubling, though. The other time, the last time, she was already sitting down at a desk – one of those all metal numbers that would get slick with perspiration in the summer – and she just sort of … slumped down over it.

"Did she fall?" he asks.

"You saw her chart," Meredith says, not looking at him.

"Yes, I saw her – " He gives up, sighing. Meredith is many things, but she's still an intern, fresh off one privacy lecture after another, and she seems to think whatever information she might have is private. Fine. He was an intern once, too.

"I saw her chart," he repeats, "and you signed her chart." He pauses. "So you know she's not pregnant."

Meredith doesn't respond.

"…since you were wondering, before," he prompts. "Yesterday?" he adds, since apparently she's forgotten.

Meredith blinks. "It's none of my business."

"You did bring it up, before."

"I know I brought it up." She pauses. "Derek … ."

He looks at her, and she holds up the chart in her hand. "I talked to Pamela Davis already about her labs, while you were with Addison – she asked me to, before she … ." A gesture of one of her small hands apparently means _fainted._

There's a lot of mime in his life today, for some reason.

Charades.

He's quiet while Meredith fills him in.

"Derek."

He glances up; his name sounds so different in her voice. It filled those two months, each inflection: Derek. _Derek._

She's looking at him now.

"Did she go home? … Addison, I mean," she clarifies drily and he decides not to explore the tone.

"No. She's working." He raises an eyebrow at Meredith's expression. "What?"

"Nothing." She turns toward the door, then turns back. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"Who said it was my idea?" He frowns a little. "She has patients."

"I know, but … ." She stops talking.

"Look. I think it's sweet that you're concerned."

He pushes away an unwelcome memory, a purposefully sultry voice meant to disarm him, succeeding: _And you have a girlfriend in Seattle. She seems … sweet. That's what you were going for, right? The anti-Addison?_

"Kind," he amends. "Very kind."

"Oh, that's me. Kind. Very kind." She makes a rueful sort of face at him. "Do you want Pamela Davis's latest numbers?"

"Of course I do." He pauses, frowning a little at the subject change. "Meredith … is there something you're not telling me?"

"Is there something I'm not telling you," Meredith repeats blankly. "Like, something in Pamela Davis's labs, that kind of something?"

" … no."

"Well, then, Dr. Shepherd – "

"Dr. Shepherd," he repeats, somewhere between amused and bemused.

" _Dr. Shepherd_ ," she repeats, "we have a patient."

"We do indeed have a patient." He frowns at her expression. "What?"

"That patient we have … she's waiting." Meredith hefts the chart and places a hand on the doorknob.

"Did Addison say something to you?" He's not even sure why he's asking.

She looks puzzled. "Why would Addison say something to me?"

That's fair.

They have work to do, anyway, so he follows her into the room, losing himself in the patient.

..

"It's early for a call." Addison checks her watch. It's not quite four o'clock in New York. "Are you punching a time card these days?"

"Not quite. I just wanted to see how you were and, to be honest, I didn't actually think you'd pick up."

Addison smiles at this, glancing to make sure her office door is closed … just in case. "You want me to hang up, and you can call back and leave a voicemail?"

"No, I can just do it now. I had it all ready and everything."

"Go for it."

" _Hey, Addie, it's Savvy, but you already know that, because caller ID and cell phones or whatever,_ _and I just wanted to know how you're feeling, and how my little niece or nephew – "_

"Sav." Her breath catches in her throat, her hand resting automatically on her still-flat midsection.

 _You're real to Savvy too. Not just to me._

"Ad? You _are_ okay, aren't you?" Savvy sounds nervous now.

"I'm fine."

"You don't sound fine."

"I'm fine, Sav."

"I know that voice. It's the _I'm fine_ right before you throw up on my new boots in front of a tour group of prospective freshmen."

"Don't worry, I'm not quite that hungover today."

Savvy is silent and Addison is well aware it's one of her friend's _things_ , her little lawyer tricks, she thinks if she's quiet long enough Addison will respond, and it's not going to work.

She's wise to it.

" … okay, okay, I fainted. A little," she amends.

Damn it.

"What? You _fainted_? Addie!"

"It's not as bad as it sounds, Sav. Really. It's not that unusual in early pregnancy. I had a fainter in my office yesterday, in fact." She rubs her forehead.

"But the baby … "

"The baby's fine." Addison lets out a breath. It's okay to sound relieved, with Savvy. Savvy gets it. She gets the relief of the baby's heartbeat _and_ the relief that she actually locked the door this time before the second furtive, reassuring Doppler.

"Thank God," Savvy sighs. "Wait, what about Derek?"

"Derek didn't faint." Addison keeps her tone light.

"Good. At least one Shepherd is still standing. But you really fainted, Ad? Was Derek there?"

 _Was Derek there_ , oh, three simple words have never been so overcomplicated as in this marriage.

"He … came by, yeah."

There's a pause. Savvy knows her too well. "You still haven't told him."

"… not exactly, no."

"Addie, what are you waiting for?" She's got that warmly exasperated tone of hers that cushions what could sound like judgment.

"Honestly? For a moment or two where he's not acting like staying with me was a mistake." She sighs a little when Savvy doesn't respond. "Those are pretty few and far between these days."

"I guess so." It's Savvy's turn to sigh. "Honey, you do realize if you tell him, you can actually give him a chance to … not act that way. To step up."

"But then he'll be stepping up because I told him."

"I'm usually all for wordplay, but in this case I disagree. You need some support there, Addie. Someone else there needs to know."

"Someone does know."

"Someone who hasn't slept with your husband," Savvy says, sounding exasperated. "Look, I think it's very … French … of you and the mistress to be all friendly with each other I really think you could use someone else there on your side."

Is Derek on her side? The concept seems sort of foreign.

Which she recognizes as part of the problem.

..

Of course she's not pregnant.

There's no surprise there.

If anything, the surprise was her muted reaction when he suggested it. He may also have been mute at the time, a charade, but she got his meaning. After so many so many years of her hackles rising at the mere suggestion …

He's studying the scans in front of him, but he's distracted, for some reason.

Addison, pregnant. The door slammed on that a long time ago.

Figuratively … but also literally.

The scans swim in front of his eyes and then he's remembering one of their worst fights, when Addison was already a fellow preparing to apply for a second fellowship and Nancy was pregnant with her third. She accused him of passive-aggressively bringing up Nancy, he reminded her that being passive-aggressive was _her_ thing, they argued all the way upstairs to the bedroom about her second fellowship before she turned on him.

 _You know what, Derek? You're right._ She stared right at him and lay down on the bed, spreading out her arms and legs as much as her typically tight skirt would allow. _Go for it. Get me pregnant._ He just stared and then she propped up on her elbows, a challenge, and kept talking: _Except the thing is, we'll do it the modern way. I'll push out the kid and put it right in your arms. I'm play with it on my two days off a month and you can wake up all night with it. You can wear one of those male-nursing-bra things and take a year off. How do you think McLelland will like you after you skip twelve months of his procedures?_

He warned her to stop, not liking where this was going, but she didn't. She wouldn't.

 _What's wrong, honey? You think it's no big deal for me to drop everything I've worked for. Why is it a big deal for you?_ Her voice was dripping with sarcasm and he was yelling by then, while she was still lying there in that disturbing half-snow angel position.

 _You want to know what the big deal is, Addison? The big deal is that you'd rather be a big deal in the OR than be a mother._

She looked at him with a mask of hurt, then snapped right back into the fight. _No, Derek, please, tell me what it's like to want to be a parent. Because it's clear you want to be a father, right? You'll do the actual work? Or is it just another prize for you, hang it on the wall with all the others?_ They were done after that, _screw you,_ he said, and she yelled the same after him while he slammed out of the bedroom and then out of the house entirely. He slept at Mark's that night and didn't call her; she didn't call him either. That standoff was a long one, for them. She took the second fellowship. Of course she did, and he remembers even then he couldn't help but think her victory was more Pyrrhic than she realized.

That was a long time ago.

Even if some of the casualties came later.

He leaves his office in search of more coffee and runs into her at the nurses' desk; she's leaning over in that familiar posture, a chart in her hand, but she stands up straight when she catches sight of him.

"You're still here," he says as he approaches.

"Well, so are you." She smiles tentatively, tucking her hair behind her ears as she does so. She looks smooth and unwrinkled, unruffled, no sign of her earlier issue.

"That's true, but I've also been conscious all day," he reminds her, smirking a little.

"Show-off." But she smiles as she says it.

"How are you feeling?"

"Like I've been conscious all day." She raises an eyebrow.

He glances at his watch. "How long are you planning to stay?"

"As long as I need to."

"Addison." He's really not in the mood for the _Alice in Wonderland_ thing right now.

"Derek." She says his name in the same inflection. "I have patients."

"I know that." He sighs a little. "You're all right to drive?"

Her gaze slides away a little.

"Addison."

"Yes. I'm fine to drive. I'm a good driver," she adds.

"You're an adequate driver."

"Derek – "

"You're a good _backseat_ driver," he offers.

She looks like she's fighting a smile and there's a half a second when he's captured by the curve of her lips – there are so many stages to each of his wife's smiles, he could track their progression on a graph millisecond by millisecond – before he snaps back to reality.

"Just be careful," he says.

"Yeah." She glances down at the chart in her hands. "Careful."

..

She messages when she gets back to the trailer, as he requested – he sees it when he scrubs out, later than he expected.

Probably later than she expected, too, and he leaves her his own message with a little flash of guilt. It's fine, she's fine, but he thought he'd finish the procedure a little earlier.

Still, it was successful. Addison understands; she's a surgeon too.

She's asleep when he gets back to the trailer – understandably, it's late. They wouldn't have survived residency without the ability to sleep through minor things like screen doors, so it's also not a surprise that she stays asleep while he shrugs out of his coat, relieves himself of his shoes, and pads over to the bed.

Her long hair is spread over his pillow – both pillows, actually; he's had a sneaking suspicion in the past that Addison keeps her hair long for the same reason she favors those ridiculously high heels: to take up more space.

As much space as she can.

Not that he's complaining about her hair. There was a time when he –

"Derek?"

Her voice is small and scratchy; he looks down to see her blinking awake.

"Hi." He watches her squint a little in the low light, getting her bearings.

Something compels him to touch her cheek – it's warm with sleep, and she turns her face just slightly into his palm. If this were their old life, she'd kiss his hand now and he holds very still, not sure what he'll do if she …

But she doesn't.

"How's the aneurysm?" she asks.

"Clipped."

She smiles hazily at this, and he lets his hand slip away from her face.

"How are you feeling?"

"Fine." She looks a little embarrassed. "I'm sorry … about before."

"About fainting." He raises his eyebrows. "Even you can't control that, you know. You _are_ a doctor."

"I know that." She pauses. "It was just one of those things."

"Twice in twenty years – not too bad."

"Fifteen years," she frowns. "Don't make me older than I am."

"Sixteen," he corrects her.

"Sixteen is less than twenty."

"But it's more than fifteen."

For a moment they're both quiet.

"Derek … your math skills are impressive – "

"Thank you," he interrupts, smirking a little.

" – but I think I'll go back to sleep now."

He nods; she's already shifting, rolling to the other side of the bed and he can see in the rise and fall of the covers how quickly she falls back to sleep.

..

She wakes to warm pressure against her back.

Cuddly, affectionate pressure.

… and a cold, wet nose on her exposed neck, which makes a lot more sense.

"Good morning," she whispers as Doc seems to summon every ounce of self-control not to bark. He flops down next to her, then stands up, licking her face.

"You're such a good boy … shhh, I'm going to take you out, just let me – "

Two things happen at once: Doc loses his battle of self-control and barks excitedly, bumping Addison as she tries carefully to climb out of bed and ends up, instead, falling half on top of her husband.

He wakes up with a start and a muffled sound of discomfort – she'd be offended, but she supposes in this instance she can't really.

"Addison – what are you doing?"

"Just trying to get out of bed," she says with as much dignity as she can muster. He sits half up, helping her off him. Doc, pleased to see both of them awake, butts his head into Derek's chest and waits for attention.

… oh, she knows what that's like.

"Okay, boy, just hang on and I'll take you out." Derek scratches Doc's muzzle distractedly.

"I was just about to take him."

Derek turns to her. "It's fine, Addie. I'll go."

"But it's my turn."

"You fainted. You can have a day off."

"I had yesterday off, and I'll have tomorrow off too." Carefully, she makes her way out of bed. "But we, um, we could go together."

"We could." He does a sort of half-laugh brush-off. "But doesn't that defeat the purpose of taking turns?"

"Yeah, I guess it does." She smiles at him, trying not to focus on the kinds of excuses he used to make up to spend time with her, _I lost my notes,_ he would say with a straight face in medical school even though she knew perfectly well he still had every word in ballpoint in his spiral notebook. _I thought you might be hungry and I was passing that place you like, with the salad thing._

"It's fine, Derek, I want the fresh air," she tells him. "I think it will feel good."

"Addison?"

She turns around, suited up now in coat and wellies, one little heartbeat of hope –

"Take your phone." He points to the ledge where it's charging. "Just in case."

Yeah, that she can do.

She doesn't go too far – just in case – but without Derek there to gloat it's actually pleasant outside. Beautiful, even, with a gentle spring breeze and a soft misty glow rolling in off the lake. Doc runs in joyful circles as she pockets his leash. Feeling trapped is for the birds; she knows that well.

Facing the lake, knowing Derek can't see her from here – even if he were looking, which is another question entirely – she rests a hand on her abdomen. Flat. Or as close to flat as it ever is; she's human and she's just spent two days in close proximity to Meredith Grey, but … the point is, her pregnancy is invisible from the outside. She's just like any woman at eight weeks, and two days.

A secret.

She keeps Doc out a little longer, enjoying the fresh air, and he noses her wistfully as she leads him back to the trailer.

"You're still up for more, huh, boy?" She smiles down at the dog, who starts moving in eager circles around her feet. "I know Daddy takes you all the way to the trail, but I'm a little tired this morning."

 _Daddy._

She hears it as soon as she says it, feels the heat of her flushing cheeks. It was unconscious. It slipped out. She can't even remember, in the moment, if she's said it before.

At least no one heard it.

Derek's made coffee by the time she gets back inside, and poured two bowls of cereal. She makes a face.

"Fish weren't biting this morning?"

"There's always tomorrow," he says, then points. "Eat."

"I hate breakfast," she reminds him, though she picks up the bowl. Derek's choice of cereal is too dry and twiggy for her taste, but then again, if she's really eating for two –

 _This is for you, baby._

What do you know? It doesn't actually taste that bad.

She manages about half the bowl, leaning her hips against the counter and watching her husband. He's distracted – he has that look on his face that tells her he's thinking about a patient and sure enough, when he notices her looking, he starts telling her about the end of last night's case.

"Karev assisted – he's not half bad, once he shuts up," Derek is saying. "He actually has pretty steady hands."

"It's always the ones you least expect," Addison says automatically.

Derek smiles, looking like he's remembering the same thing – Chief Garroway, intern year.

She has a brief flood of warmth – _that was us, together, you remember_ ; she's aching to keep it going. "And then you remember he said that anyone could do it if – "

She stops.

It was Mark. _Mark_ is the end of that sentence. The smile drops off Derek's face; abruptly, he pushes his chair back.

"I'm late."

 _Me too, honey, that's how this all started._

It would be funny – it _is_ funny, and if her throat feels a little thick, it's probably just the hormones.

Her hand hovers over the metaphorical daisy, because even though the warmth is gone from his tone he does suggest driving to work together – and then spends the trip communing with news radio, apparently preferring President Bush's voice to his wife's.

But then he rests a hand on her back, lightly, as they walk up the path to the lobby entrance and she drinks in that extra moment of closeness.

"Derek? We could have dinner tonight." She schools her voice not to sound too eager. "I mean, if you want."

He looks distracted, fumbling with his blackberry.

"Derek."

He glances up.

"Dinner," she repeats, probably not sounding as patient as she could.

"Dinner. Sure." He gives her a brief smile before he heads into the elevator.

But it's her turn to be distracted – she can't even spare the time to put her husband's reluctant assent into the _hates me not_ column, because she's just caught sight of the back of a very familiar, very out-of-place head standing at the security desk.

Wait.

It can't be.

Can it?

But then the figure turns around with a big, familiar smile.

"Addison! Did I surprise you?"

… _that_ would be an understatement.

* * *

 _Okay, let's make a deal. You promise to do more than just yell at me for the cliff in your reviews (you can yell, you just have to say other stuff too), and I promise to get another chapter up this week. And I promise Derek is going to find out soon. They wouldn't be Addek if they didn't do the push and pull hot and cold that keeps us all coming back for more, more, more. But he'll find out. Meanwhile, reviews keep me typing fast and furious and I love hearing your thoughts, so I hope you'll review and let me know!_


	7. Fish and Houseguests

_**A/N: It's another freezing cold Sunday as I post this just under the one-week deadline. This chapter took longer than I hoped, which is why you're getting the longest chapter yet - double length really, just for this one, just this time, but here it is. It drove me a bit crazy, but I'm happy to post and I truly hope you enjoy it.**_

 _ **Thank you ruflypicture for the awesome new cover image! And thank you all so much for your incredible response to this story - stay warm, and happy reading!**_

* * *

 ** _Fish and Houseguests_**

 _Gestational Age: Eight weeks, one day_ _  
_ _Baby is the Size of a: slightly larger raspberry, presumably  
Baby's Traitorous Favorite Meal is: breakfast_ _  
_ _People Who Know So Far: one embryo, one former mistress, one former adulteress, one cross-country best friend, and a partridge in a pear tree  
People Who Still Don't Know: her husband and the baby's father (who are both the same man, despite what people may call her in Seattle)_  
 _Number of Weeks Before Baby Just Tells it's Father/Her Husband By Itself: don't ask_

* * *

"Sav! How could I _not_ be surprised?" She hugs her friend tightly before she holds her away, delighted, to take her in. "You never told me you were coming!"

"Oh, I know, but I thought you might wonder, from our call … ." Savvy's eyes are sparkling.

"You give me too much credit."

Savvy smiles fondly at her. "Do you ever think you don't give yourself _enough_ credit, Addie?"

"Well, you – " Addison pauses, concerned. "Wait. You're not sick?" she asks quickly.

"Do I look sick?"

"No. You look _great_." Addison pulls her in for another hug, her familiar perfume floating up, then holds her away again. "But that still doesn't explain why you're here."

"I'm here to see you, Addie," Savvy says. "That's all. That's enough."

For some reason … she has to blink back tears.

Savvy squeezes her hand. "Look, I know you have to work, but – is there somewhere we can talk for a minute?"

..

Inside her office, the door closed, surrounded by thankful privacy, Savvy stands in front of her, eyes shining.

"You're pregnant, Addie," she says softly.

Addison nods. "I'm pregnant," she repeats. Might as well practice the words again; maybe sometime she'll get to say them to her husband.

"And you're happy."

"I'm happy." The word catches in her throat, _happy_ , but it's Savvy – she understands, and she wraps her arms around her, her familiar scent comforting.

"I'm sorry." Addison draws back, wiping her eyes. "It's just been … a lot."

Savvy smiles sadly at her. "You haven't told Derek yet."

"No."

"But you're pregnant, and you're happy about it."

Slowly, she nods.

"I'm happy too." Savvy leans in and kisses her cheek. "Addie, this is – this is huge. You're pregnant."

"I know." She laughs a little; it's the most she's heard those words spoken out loud.

Despite the lump of a secret in her stomach, the bitter taste in her throat sometimes when she imagines Derek's reaction … she kind of likes the word.

 _Pregnant._

She kind of likes it a lot.

"I just wish I'd known you were coming so I could have taken the day off." Addison takes a breath to gather herself, scrolling through her calendar. "I should be able to leave early, at least."

"That's perfect. I have some business in Seattle … ostensibly, anyway." Savvy's grin turns mischievous, making her look like the sparkly-eyed college freshman Addison met so long ago. "What?" she asks innocently. "I have to justify a last-minute redeye somehow."

Addison looks at her friend – no overnight bag, but then Savvy is a notoriously efficient packer; she might have a week's worth of clothing Mary Poppins'd into her oversized purse.

"Where are you staying?" she asks.

"I thought I'd stay with you and Derek."

Addison's eyes widen. "Stay with – "

But Savvy's eyes are twinkling.

"You're kidding," Addison says weakly.

"Of course I'm kidding." Savvy squeezes her arm. "What's that they say? Fish and houseguests stink after three days? And from what I've heard, your … _house_ already has enough fish in it."

" …touché."

"I have a room at the Archfield," Savvy continues. "Well, a suite, but I couldn't stop them from upgrading me. All those points. Anyway, it's where I would have assumed you'd stay."

When she got here … before she moved into Derek's trailer.

If you can call it _moving in_ and not, you know, _semi-consensual marital squatting._

"I would have," Addison says now, "you know me. But, uh, I ended up staying at a place closer to Derek."

Not that she was advertising it at the time, but even though the actual hotel on Bainbridge might not have been her first choice, the views … well.

"Ah." Savvy nods. "That's a good reason. I just figured you'd want to be close to the hospital this time."

Addison must be telegraphing her confusion.

"… in case you want to stay over," Savvy clarifies.

"Stay over – like sleep over?"

"Pillow fights and everything. I can even try to dig up my old slam book if you want."

Addison finds herself smiling. "Sav … ."

"No pressure," Savvy says quickly, "but I wasn't kidding about getting you out of that … fish trailer."

It's a good point.

Derek held off on the fish this morning, it's true, maybe feeling sorry for her after her unfortunately timed collapse yesterday. But she's fairly certain neither she nor her half-Derek, breakfast-loving baby is going to react well if he brings another armload of fragrant trout tomorrow.

"It's tempting," she admits.

"Plus, they have a five-star spa, and I am just _full_ of airplane germs."

"You convinced me," Addison announces.

Savvy beams. "I'm going to take some … unbearable hedge fund guy to lunch, but I'll hold you that early dismissal."

"You are truly the best."

"Takes one to know one." Savvy flicks her long hair like she used to and they both smile, remembering.

Impulsively, Addison hugs her again. "Savvy … how did you know that you were exactly what I needed?"

"Lucky guess." Savvy grins at her.

..

Her schedule is mercifully light enough, and the weather misty-but-not-pouring enough, to share a coffee with Savvy in the cool air before they have to separate. Savvy orders a decaf, Addison wrinkling her nose instinctively, and they swap once they're settled on the driest wrought-iron bench they can find.

She's tired – that bone-deep exhaustion she's been feeling for days now – but Savvy keeps her energy up. It's strange, talking about the baby to someone in person. She's not worried, of course; Savvy knows how to keep a secret.

That's what this baby is, right now. A secret, growing inside her every day. The baby is changing her, from the inside, long before anything will be visible.

"Ad? Did you hear me?"

"No," she admits, turning to Savvy.

"I'd be offended – but I think I can give you this one." Savvy takes a sip of coffee, resting her free hand on Addison's. "Honey – what's your plan for telling Derek?"

"My plan," she repeats. "I, uh … " she remembers as she speaks. "We were going to have dinner, tonight. Or I asked him to have dinner anyway."

"Oh!" Savvy sits back on the bench.

"But I don't think – "

"No, this is great," Savvy says, interrupting her, and Addison realizes as she keeps talking that she misinterpreted the start of her protest. "We'll go to the spa, get you all … relaxed and beautiful – even _more_ beautiful, that is – and I'm thinking we add a killer blowout and then you go to dinner and then you tell him and why are you shaking your head?" She frowns.

"Because while that is a great-sounding plan … really … I'm actually not even sure Derek remembers we were going to have dinner."

His assent was … distracted, reluctant, mostly a _yes_.

"Addie."

"No, it's fine. Really, Sav."

Savvy doesn't protest, just squeezes her hand again and distracts her with a story about the apparently insufferable client lucky enough to enjoy her company today.

..

"You're sure you don't mind if I work in your office?" Savvy asks again her as they walk side by side down the hall.

"I already told you, of course I don't. You should have everything you need – the hospital even has state of the art wireless online … whatever." She waves a hand.

"Okay, then," Savvy says. "It's just until lunch, and then I'll work remotely from the hotel. So as soon as you can get off work … we'll hit that spa."

Addison sighs with anticipated pleasure, until a voice stops her in her tracks.

"Savvy?"

They both turn at the incredulous tone.

"I didn't know you were in town." Derek looks puzzled, a bit off kilter, but then he seems to snap out of it and kisses Savvy on the cheek, exclaiming over how good she looks.

"It was last minute." Savvy smiles at him. "I missed my favorite New Yorkers – what can you do?"

"We're not New Yorkers anymore," Derek says.

Addison winces, not sure whether to pull off a _he hates me_ petal for "not New Yorkers" or _he hates me not_ for "we."

"Oh, but it's like riding a bike, Derek." Savvy widens her eyes. "Once the city gets under your skin, it never escapes."

Derek grimaces slightly. "Weiss isn't with you?"

"Not this time."

He nods, glancing at Addison, who shrugs a little.

Derek glances at his watch. "I need to get back to work." He smiles at Savvy. "We should – catch up," he says. "Later."

"I'd love that. We could all have dinner?" Savvy asks, innocently, and Addison feels her cheeks heat up.

"I have back-to-back procedures this afternoon." He glances at his watch, then at Addison, his expression neutral. "I'm expecting the first to go long, so you shouldn't wait for me to eat. But if you want to – get a drink later, or something – "

Addison is making the subtlest throat slashing gestures she can. All she needs is to end up at a bar where her abstinence becomes too obvious to hide.

"Actually, I'm not drinking," Savvy announces.

"You're not – drinking?" Derek looks confused enough for Addison to start wondering exactly how the world perceives what she would have described as a perfectly normal affinity for good wine.

"I'm doing a cleanse," Savvy says.

"A cleanse," Derek repeats doubtfully, maybe remembering all the times Savvy would complain that no one above the Mason-Dixon line should be permitted to make biscuits and if they absolutely had to, they should at least use her great-grandmothers hand-rendered pork fat to do so.

"Yes. A cleanse. No alcohol. And no – " Savvy's face telegraphs her internal floundering for barely a millimeter of a second, visible only to someone who's known her as closely as Addison, which means Derek won't notice – "octopus," she concludes with dignity.

"Octopus?"

"That's right." Savvy smiles.

"Oh." Derek glances at Addison. "You're doing this too? That's why you haven't been drinking?"

Addison nods reluctantly, trying not to think about the octopus a la plancha with the perfect little marcona almonds at that one restaurant she doesn't hate, by the waterfront. It's a little depressing to give up one of the very few things in Seattle that are … decent, but the stakes are high.

Derek glances at Savvy. "What's wrong with octopus?"

"Toxins," she says with confidence. "They're just … full of toxins. So we're detoxing."

Derek looks unconvinced.

"I don't know the science, of course, but my nutritionist swears this cleanse will take off that stubborn five pounds," Savvy offers brightly. "You know … from the _hysterectomy_."

When Derek has made his less-than-comfortable leave, the tips of his ears pink, Savvy grins at Addison. "It never fails. If you want to get a guy to leave, or change the topic, go right for the hysterectomy. I've gotten Weiss to drop _so_ many things that way."

Addison grins at her. God, she's missed having a friend. "The thing is, Sav, there's maybe … one decent restaurant in Seattle, and you would have loved the octopus."

"Just one?" Savvy holds up her blackberry. "Because one of my partners was out here for a few weeks last year – and he gave me a list."

"Oh. He did?" Addison feels a little curl of hope, like Savvy's brought a bit of home with her. "You mean the one partner, with the house in Amagansett?"

"No, the other. The one with the cottage on the Vineyard."

"I like that one."

"I know you like that one. That's why I got the list from him." Savvy grins at her. "And anyway, we can still eat octopus if Derek isn't with us."

..

Derek closes the door behind him, finished with his pre-op.

So Savvy's in town. Addison didn't mention anything about her coming.

But even if he wanted to ponder why, he doesn't have time. What he has … is patients.

He catches sight of a familiar set of small shoulders, a swinging ponytail.

"Meredith." He catches up to her.

"Dr. Shepherd."

"This again?"

She doesn't meet his eye. Sighing, he glances at the chart he's holding. "Look, Roderick Carter was your patient. I thought you'd want to scrub in with me. But I certainly don't want you doing anything that would make you … uncomfortable."

He has a moment of his own discomfort – _why are you pushing this?_

Meredith blinks. "I do want to scrub in."

"Fine."

He turns to leave.

"Derek."

"Now I'm Derek?" he repeats, turning back. "Because I'm letting you scrub in?"

Her eyes widen. "First of all, you're not _letting_ me scrub in. Carter was my patient and I did a good job with him, you said so yourself." Her voice shakes a little. "Unless that was just to get me to – "

"Of course it wasn't," he mutters.

She just stares at him.

"What's the second thing? You said _first of all_ ," he reminds her.

"The second thing is that you're not Derek because you're letting me scrub in, you're Derek because I wanted to make sure you're not just letting me scrub in because you're Derek."

He tries to sort out the words.

"I'm not sure I follow."

"Forget it."

"Meredith. Did I do something to upset you?"

"Oh, Dr. Shepherd, how much time do you have?"

He frowns, but his pager goes off before he can ask her to clarify what feels like an unfair statement.

..

"… and try to count correctly this time, Karev. With numbers."

Derek is aware it's not this particular intern's fault what _that_ intern said, but it's Karev – a little knocking off his pedestal isn't going to hurt anything. Meredith may be scrubbing in on the returning patient, but Karev's on his service today.

"Numbers. Got it," Karev says, his tone just this short of insolent.

"See that you do."

He turns then, having caught sight of Savvy's bright hair. She's walking toward him, wearing her coat. "You're still here."

"Yeah, I was working in Addie's office, but I'm heading out now to meet a client for lunch." She pauses. "It's good to see her, and you too, Derek. It's been a while."

He looks down.

"Are you sure you can't make dinner tonight?" Savvy prods.

"I don't think it's going to happen. Not the way pre-op is progressing. Just – let me know where you end up," he says, recognizing the words from a hundred nights in New York, where they meant more _which direction should the cab go_ , but the sentiment is the same.

"Yeah." Savvy looks over her shoulder for a moment; she seems a little – preoccupied, and he has a brief flash of concern.

"Savvy – is something wrong?" Derek frowns. "You're not – here because of your health, are you?"

"My health? No."

"Good."

"Yeah." She sighs for some reason. "Derek, I love you, but you can be such a _guy_ sometimes." She shakes her head at him, but her expression is fond.

"Is that a bad thing?" he asks.

"Dr. Shepherd! I just talked to the lab, and – " Karev stops talking mid-interruption as he strides up to them; he's looking Savvy up and down with an expression that borders on a leer.

"Hey, I remember you." Karev grins before Derek can intervene. "You're the She-Shepherd's friend."

"The She-Shepherd?" Derek turns to glare at him.

"I mean _Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd_ 's friend," Karev amends, then turns back to Savvy. "Looking good," he says, raising his eyebrows. "Really good."

Derek frowns. "Dr. Karev, this is a hospital, not a fraternity house."

Savvy looks flattered, though, and Derek sighs.

"She's post-op," Karev says, gesturing to Savvy, his tone nervily innocent. "I'm just happy to see her so healthy."

"I'm sure you are."

Derek shakes his head, about to order Karev to go check on their patient's labs when a distinctive _click-clack_ announces his wife's breathless arrival.

"Sav, you're still here?" she asks, turning her face toward Derek. Obediently, he kisses her cheek.

"I'm still here, but I'm leaving. I was just getting reacquainted with Dr. Karev."

"I'm also leaving," Derek says.

"Derek – "

"I'll see you later," he says over his shoulder, catching a glimpse of Addison and Savvy standing in identical postures as he walks away.

..

Savvy's particular brand of cheerful hedonism has been a saving grace for Addison more than once in the past, and tonight is no exception.

 _I'll see you later,_ that's what Derek said when she found him talking in the hall with Savvy and Karev, just before Savvy left for lunch.

Later, in her experience in Seattle, often translates to _never._

So she wasn't surprised that Derek was still in the OR when she closed out her last case a few hours ago. She left him a message about meeting up later – it was his idea, after all … sort of … even if it was more to see Savvy than his wife.

And then she left the hospital and didn't look back until she was ensconced in the scent of the promised spa – some combination of cucumber, chamomile, and the stripped pine of the ceiling beams.

"Better?" Savvy asks, turning to her with a smile.

Well …

The two of them are sitting side by side in matching impossibly soft robes, holding cups of mint-infused ionized water while the type of tinkling music that's supposed to calm you drifts out of hidden speakers. They're the only guests in the relaxation room, which suits them just fine because it lets them whisper instead of observing the sort of zen silence that would otherwise be expected.

" _Better_ … would be an understatement," Addison says, smiling back.

"And we haven't even met the masseuses."

They exchange a meaningful look and then, as if they'd planned it, relax on the impossibly comfortable cushions. She hasn't been to a spa in … far too long. Hasn't felt this relaxed in longer, and she finds one hand resting on her abdomen through the soft material of her robe.

 _See, baby? I'm not always a basket case._

But her good mood wanes when the manager approaches her, twisting his hands nervously as only a manager can do when he has to let down a high-paying client.

"Dr. Shepherd, I'm so sorry, but it's the spa's policy only to perform full body prenatal massage after ten weeks," he says apologetically.

"I'm a neonatologist," she points out, annoyed. " … Gabriel," she adds, reading his engraved name pin. "A good one."

"A _great_ one," Savvy clarifies. "And I'm her lawyer," she adds, raising a perfectly groomed brow.

"I'm so sorry. But I can assure you that our modified prenatal relaxation package has received the highest of accolades."

She lets out an irritated breath – she's been looking forward to a full-body massage.

" … fine," she says, and Gabriel's exhale is one of obvious relief.

Initial disappointment aside … it turns she can't actually complain.

Not really.

Not now that she's loose-limbed and glowing, her skin butter-smooth from an exfoliation vigorous enough to pass muster in the scrub room. They wouldn't go near her midsection or let her onto the perfectly heated tables, but the isolated hand and foot massages were about as close to perfect as it gets.

She's so relaxed, in fact, that she's not even bothered by Derek's distracted sounding call around nine to tell her he was held up at work. It's fine – they've already ordered room service, sitting cross-legged on the bed like they're still in college while Savvy kills half a bottle of wine and Addison, sticking to Perrier, still manages to feel drunk on much-missed friendship.

 _It's fine,_ that's what she says to Derek, _it's fine, honey_ , and she decides to count it as a win that she can't see whether he flinches at the term of endearment.

..

Soft rain is drumming the trailer – a peaceful sound, a sound he never would have heard in Manhattan unless it came from some overpriced noise machine his wife purchased – as he pours a scotch.

Doc leaps up on the bed beside him when he starts to settle in, whining a little as he paws the empty half of the bed.

"You miss her, huh?" Derek reaches over to rub the dog's muzzle; Doc is nothing if not affectionate, and he flops contentedly down beside him.

It's calming.

Being alone is calming.

The phone rings then, jarring him.

"Weiss." Derek frowns at his wristwatch. "It's late. It's late enough to be early. Is everything okay?"

"I'm on trial," Weiss says. "Time has no meaning for me. And yeah, everything's okay."

Derek scratches Doc's ears while he considers this.

"So Savvy's there," Weiss prompts.

"She's here," Derek says. "Not _here_ , here, she and Addie are in their coven. Hotel room," he corrects himself grudgingly, even though Weiss gives him an appreciative chuckle.

"What are they doing there?"

"I don't know." Derek glances outside at the rain. "Braiding each other's hair, painting each other's nails, talking about what a terrible husband I am … girl things."

"Girl things." Weiss sounds faintly amused. "Don't let them hear you say that."

"I won't."

Weiss clears his throat a little. "How are things going with the two of you?"

Derek considers how to answer this. He and Weiss are friends, yes, but they're – Yankees friends, our-wives-are-friends friends, _guy_ friends. _It's about the rings_ is pretty much as up close and personal as their guy friendship has been, and maybe should be. He and Addison may be back together – or _trying_ , at least – but Savvy and Weiss's trip to Seattle reinforced, at least for him, that Addison's the one who really has custody of the other couple.

"They're going," Derek says.

"I respect you for trying to work it out," Weiss says, his tone serious. "I mean look, I wouldn't make any money if everyone tried to work things out, so I can't say I wish everyone would be as – amenable as you. But I'm glad you are."

It's somewhat convoluted – but Derek gets the sentiment.

"Weiss?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you know why Savvy's here?"

"To see Addie," Weiss says, as if it's perfectly obvious. "Why else?"

He doesn't respond.

..

"Sav?"

She turns around; she's been leaning against the wall outside the cafeteria. "Derek, hi."

"Sorry I couldn't meet you last night," he offers.

"It's fine. You were working." Savvy glances at her phone. "I got your message. You wanted to … "

"Yeah." He studies his hands for a moment. "Look, I don't know how much Addison told you …"

He stops talking. Savvy's face is perfectly neutral, expressionless. She's not going to give anything away; maybe it was foolish to try.

"Should I be worried?" he asks finally, bluntly.

Savvy looks confused.

"You're here, and she's …."

"Oh. _Oh._ " Savvy touches his arm. "Derek. No. Talk to Addison, okay? But no – that's not why I'm here. I promise," she adds.

He nods. She's believable, Savvy, but there's something strange about her visit, its timing. Was it just a coincidence? Or was she, too, concerned about Addison's health?

"You're worried about her," Savvy suggests.

"Yeah." He looks down for a moment before returning her gaze, a little uncomfortable for some reason. "She fainted the other day."

"I heard."

"She hasn't fainted since – "

"Medical school," Savvy supplies. "I remember. I spent half my Con Law exam hoping someone would pass out in our room too and get us an extra half hour."

"Forty minutes," he corrects automatically, not really paying attention. His mind is drifting back to that humid day, to Addison in her lightweight stripey sundress, long hair piled on her head with damp tendrils around her flushed face. He could tell she was overheated but then so were the rest of them, and they were strictly proctored during exams – no contact between students, not if they wanted to pass. So he tried to concentrate on his bluebook, his cramped fingers, except for that little rush of air when she slumped forward on the metal desk and he jumped to his feet before he could stop himself, calling her name, no longer caring in that moment if he failed his exam.

 _Addison!_

She was fine, then. Embarrassed but fine, once she cooled down. He slept at her place that night, over her protests that he needed to study on his own. _I won't talk to you if you don't want me to, but you shouldn't be alone._ She smiled at this, he remembers. _Derek, it's okay. Naomi's here – she can watch me._ But he shook his head. _Not like I can_ , he said. She blushed a little, but she relented. It was still hot; they stretched out naked on top of the sheets, the hook and eye fastened on the scarred wooden door of her bedroom, two fans pointed at their tangled bodies. What he recalls is that he waited for her to fall asleep first, waited until her breathing was peaceful and even, her skin its normal rosy fair instead of flushed with heated discomfort. He watched her for as long as he could, until sleep claimed him too.

"Thanks for, uh, for meeting me," he says without looking at her.

"Anytime. But now I get a question," Savvy says.

Slowly, he nods.

"It's over with you and that … with the intern." Her eyes search his. "Right?"

"Of course it's over." He stares at the linoleum pattern of the floor, then looks up at her, frowning. "Did Addison tell you it's not over?"

"No. I just wanted to confirm, that's all. You know, things seem more … stable than the last time I was here, and I just wanted to make sure I'm not imagining it."

"Imagining … "

" … that things are better, with you and Addie."

"Oh." He fingers the pager at his hip. Savvy's visit to Seattle with Weiss, her surgery, already seem so long ago. "You're not imagining it," he says finally.

Savvy tips her head up to kiss his cheek. "I didn't think so," she says.

..

It's remarkable how quickly the day goes when she knows Savvy is waiting for her after work. Forcing breakfast is another miracle, keeping the queasiness at bay. Even the exhaustion that's been making her feet heavier seems to be better with Savvy in town.

And there's her daily ritual, always with a locked door, of checking the baby's heartbeat.

She still hasn't had an ultrasound.

She still hasn't had a blood test.

"It doesn't seem fair to do it without Derek," she admits to Savvy over dinner.

"I get it," she says, "so you need to tell him."

Yeah – she's aware.

But she relishes the peace of being with Savvy, of not having to track Derek's moods and try to figure out how much or little he's disgusted with her in the moment, to doubt all of her decisions and even her own worth.

With Savvy, it's different.

Sitting on the vast white hotel bed in a soft t-shirt from her locker, arms around her updrawn knees, she feels lighter than she has in months.

"Weiss sends his love," Savvy announces, snapping her little phone shut as she wanders back from the unnecessarily large sitting room.

"He doesn't mind that you're here?"

"Well, he misses me," Savvy says, "but he's on trial. And anyway, he knows you're my number one, and I would have married you instead of him if you could do that thing he does with – "

"Sav!"

She grins. "My point is, he gets it. No, I didn't tell him, don't worry," she says hastily, "he gets it though. He knows things were … tough, when we were out here the last time. And anyway, I threw in a quick _hysterectomy_ to make sure he wouldn't ask too many questions."

"Weiss is fine, Addie. He loves you. And if you want my honest opinion – I think he misses _these_ more than me." She gestures downward.

"They do look pretty great."

"Don't they?" Savvy squeezes her hand. "And you've seen them up close now," she adds with a wink.

In the peaceful, quiet dark of the hotel room … they talk.

"Things are better," Savvy says tentatively, "between you and Derek. Aren't they?"

She thinks about it. Are things better?

Last time Savvy was here, she was sleeping alone at an inn she didn't like, scoping out the schedule to catch Derek on the ferry only to have him ignore her. She was trying to get him to move out of that awful trailer; he was trying to get her – but that was months ago. A lot of months. He hadn't even touched her then, save for a few kisses. Now they're, for better or worse, living together. Aren't they? Even if it's _for worse_ a fair amount of the time. But sometimes it almost feels _for better_. When they laughed across from each other behind a hospital curtain, swapping pillow swipes when he discovered her poison oak. And then once the cortisone kicked in he took her, and Doc too, up Tiger Trail for a longer than usual morning walk where he taught her how to recognize poison oak, teasing that he would leave her on the trail if she couldn't get it right.

 _If you were a boy, you would have learned this in scouts_ , that's what he said. _Yeah, if I were a boy, I would've peed standing up and avoided all of this_ , that was her retort, and when he looked infuriatingly amused, she propped a hand on her hip. _Would you rather I were a boy?_ He laughed a little at that. _Mm … no. I can't say that I would_ , and then she laughed too and he inspected her hands carefully for any remaining toxin before he pulled her close for a moment, _much better than a boy,_ he said. _Worth a little poison oak?_ she asked, knowing she was pushing it, that what she really wanted to say was, _worth everything I've put you through?_ But he kissed her instead of answering, anyway, and she was pretty sure, at the time, that was better.

"I haven't seen him," she says, though it sounds like an excuse.

"Stay with him tomorrow night," Savvy suggests, but she shakes her head. "When will you see him?" she pushes.

"I should actually go tomorrow morning," she says slowly, realizing the truth of it. "I'll need something else to wear if I'm staying here another night."

Savvy doesn't push her – she segues seamlessly into discussion of the blouse she admired earlier, and their tailoring discussion lasts until they're both settled in their pillows and half asleep.

It's not that she doesn't want to tell Derek.

It's that she's happy about the baby. She's happy and Derek's oblivious and she's had a week now to adjust to that – but if she's happy and Derek's not oblivious but also not happy?

She's not sure she'll be able to take that.

..

Derek is dreaming – something he can't quite put his finger on, but it smells clean and green. A walk, somewhere. And then the breeze in his dream becomes the displacement of air over his head.

He's not alone.

"Addison." He blinks, surprised. "What are you doing here?"

"Clothes." She gestures vaguely at the interior of the trailer. "I, uh, I already used the spare set from my office yesterday."

"Walk of shame?"

" … something like that."

She stands up again, turning away slightly as she starts to unbutton her blouse. He could go back to sleep – it's early – but he finds himself half-watching instead, as Doc sleeps contentedly on the other side of the bed. She's undressing and packing in turn, down to scraps of lace with an open leather carryall in front of her when he speaks.

"You're going to sleep at the hotel again tonight?"

She smiles a little over her bare shoulder. "Why … did you miss me?" she asks, and then he sees the moment she registers what's changed between them, discomfort evident in her eyes.

It's a remnant of another life, another Addison, _did you miss me?_ she would whisper after an overnight shift or an unexpected call. _Of course_ , he'd say, or _always_.

He doesn't say anything now, just lowers his eyes to avoid seeing the hurt in hers.

"I was kidding," she says with a forced casual tone. She hovers by the side of the bed for a moment and Doc, panting eagerly, flops down in front of her. She strokes his muzzle. "Now, this guy … he missed me."

Doc, no fool, rolls to his back and waits for Addison to rub his exposed stomach, his tongue lolling out of his happily open mouth.

"Apparently," Derek says, smiling a little.

"Well … one out of two isn't bad." She leans over him, using both hands to pet him and Derek is pretty sure he can hear the dog sigh with ecstasy.

Her face is inches from Doc's fur, her long hair dangling down onto the bed. He can't tell what she's playing at – she can't have missed the way the lace that's barely covering her scraped his bare chest while she reached for the dog. But there's something in her eyes – she's wearing little makeup – that also makes her look very young.

She seems to notice him watching and glances up. "What?" she asks suspiciously.

"Nothing." He smiles a little, gesturing at the dog. "You want me to leave you two alone, or … ?"

"Very funny." She makes a face at him, and he makes one back. Doc, meanwhile, whines a little at the loss of her attention.

"Don't laugh," Addison scolds, "you're going to give him a complex."

"A complex?" He raises his eyebrows. "Really."

"Really."

Doc takes the opportunity to nose her hand, apparently startling her; he finds himself laughing at her reaction and she widens her eyes. "I told you not to laugh," she reminds him.

When he doesn't look recalcitrant enough for her, she reaches toward him with an expression of amused outrage – maybe to swat him or to grab one of the pillows; the Addison of his memories would occasionally use pillows as an affectionate weapon. He catches her hand before she can make contact; in the melee Doc leaps down from the bed and Addison, off balance, tumbles forward into his arms.

She's blushing a little when she untangles herself; it's hard to be annoyed with her right now, when he's been awakened early and she's soft and playful like this. The air between them shifts, and the corner of her mouth twitches before she closes the remaining space between them to press her lips to his.

He returns the kiss automatically, sitting half up as she swings one leg onto the bed. She smiles at him when he pulls back, looking almost shy.

She feels warm against him, soft; he cups a palm over black lace but feels her flinch at the pressure.

"Sorry." He frowns, moving his hand. "What's wrong?"

"I'm sensitive, that's all … or have you forgotten?" she adds lightly.

"Oh, I haven't forgotten." He slides his hands over her bare waist instead, pulling her against him. She laughs a little but the movement of her hips against his is anything but funny. He shifts her slightly, getting a better grip as sun streams into the trailer.

He blinks at the glare.

"It's so bright."

"Yeah." Addison's stilled her movements now, quiet against him. "I guess that makes it harder not to look at me," she adds.

He groans, his head dropping back to the pillow. "Almost five minutes without complaining – going for the record?"

She doesn't respond, but she's scooted away from him, drawing the rumpled sheet he discarded up to her chin so she's all eyes, huge and vaguely accusatory.

"Okay, fine." He sighs; she's fishing and he'll have to bite or drown – at least this is a way into the air. "What's the matter, Addison?" he asks, as patiently as he can manage.

"Nothing," she says, in the tone he's fairly certain most reasonably experienced husbands would also correctly interpret as _everything, but good luck figuring out what in particular._

"Addison." He shakes his head. "If you're not in the mood, just tell me, and – "

"Not everything is about sex."

"Says the woman who slept with _Mark Sloan._ "

He regrets invoking Mark's name almost as soon as he does it.

What's wrong with good, old-fashioned, _her husband's best friend,_ his usual choice?

To make matters worse, Addison manages to look hurt by his remark despite both its truth and her own culpability, which is in character as far as he's concerned. Neither truth nor culpability ever seemed to interfere much with Addison's feeling sorry for herself.

And if he's being a little uncharitable … then so be it. It's early, he had an exhausting night, and they had a pretty good thing going this morning until his wife decided to flip out instead.

"Cheap shot," she says calmly.

He doesn't deny it. He reminds himself she was in a hospital bed not long ago.

"Are you … feeling all right?" he asks.

"I'm not going to throw up on you if that's what you're asking."

"That's a promising start." He moves a stray lock of hair away from her face. "How about fainting?"

"That either."

"Okay, then." He pauses.

She shrugs a little; the sheet slips down, exposing one collarbone, and it's distracting. She's such a combination of strength and delicacy – _so sensitive_ , as he liked to tease her back when they would tease … with surprisingly fragile turns of bone making up her overall overpowering essence.

He leans now in and presses his lips to the spot before he's really sure why. Her hip is warm under his hand. Addison is always complaining that she's cold, but there's always been one unfailing way to warm her up.

"What was that for?" she asks when he's drawn back and propped on his elbow. She looks less hurt now anyway, her eyes heavy-lidded in the way he's come to associate, over the years, with a good mood.

It's his turn to shrug now.

Somehow, though, it seems to be the right answer because she leans in to kiss him back and they pick up where they left off – she's still half outside the sheet, which ends up tangled between them and they laugh a little. He's remembering the early days, the med school days, when they were clumsy with youthful excitement and more enthusiastic than they were experienced. He doesn't have to ask if she's remembering it too.

He drops back onto his pillow when they've finished; she's already swung her long legs out of bed and disappeared into the bathroom.

He waits a few minutes before he joins her. "Did you save me any hot water?"

"What hot water?" she grouses, but she moves over a little to give him time under the spray. She's shivering, gooseflesh rising on her arms. Cold again. He slides a hand over the curve of her waist and pulls her against him. She makes a soft sound of surprise.

"Don't get any ideas," he warns her.

"You're the one at risk of getting an … idea." Her voice is a throaty purr – post-coital Addison is a guessing game, in his experience, maybe a little Russian Roulette: he's seen everything from half-sleep to helpless laughter to clingy affection to almost immediate return to ground zero. She could be insatiable, which has its appeal in bed and occasionally outside of it, but plenty of downsides too. _Never satisfied_ covers a lot of ground.

"We're too old for this." He doesn't push her away but he moves her a little, still letting her lean against him. He feels her exhale against the wet skin of his neck.

She moves back, holding his face between her hands.

"We're not old," she says.

This close, all he can see is _her_ face. Her long hair is slicked back wetly, very little makeup on her face – she's wearing almost nothing at all other than a few sparkles of diamond: in her ears, and on the hand pressed to his cheek.

 _Do you love her?_

Meredith asked him that, Thanksgiving night.

 _I don't know_ , that's what he told her.

The answer was, the answer is, maybe the answer always will be … that it's complicated.

It's just complicated.

And Addison doesn't like complicated. She wants – forgiveness, renewal, _something_.

Everything.

..

Is this what passes for normal, now? she wonders.

Dressing and packing and driving her way onto the car ferry, leaving Derek in the trailer.

Lunch with Savvy – _you had sex this morning!_ her friend exclaims while Addison, blushing furiously, attempts to hide behind her salad.

Patients who blend into each other, one ultrasound after another.

Derek's busy, distracted; he kisses her cheek when he passes her in the hall and she allows herself a private smile for what they shared that morning.

If he remembers it, _or_ her, it's not clear from his face.

And then she huddles into an empty room, locks the door, and holds her breath until the doppler confirms the life within her is still growing.

 _I'm sorry, baby. I owe you better. We'll get there._

..

 _Better_ is the hotel that night, letting professionals with unspeakably gifted hands massage the tension out of her extremities while she dozes against soft pillows in the soothingly scented spa.

"I could get used to this," Savvy grins at her; her laptop is open on the bed but she hasn't glanced at it since dinner.

"So I think what I'll do is move into this hotel, get a prenatal massage every night, and eat room service and get really fat." Addison leans back against the padded headboard; it's strange to feel so relaxed. "What do you think, Sav? Are you with me?"

"I think … I went through a lot of pain and copays for these," Savvy says, taking a sip of champagne and then gesturing at her breasts, "and I'm not about to add stretch marks. But yes, I'm with you. No matter what." She pauses. "You know that, right?"

Addison exhales shakily, tears coming to her eyes again. "I've made a mess of this."

"No, Addie, I really think it's the opposite. You made something _good._ Something beautiful. You and Derek. You just need to clue him in so the two of you can actually enjoy it together."

 _Together._

She sleeps deeply that night.

..

Addison wakes at dawn out of habit, tangled in the white duvet, a little disoriented until she remembers where she is. She takes a moment of surprise for her sound sleep: it must be the pleasantly scented air or her loose muscles from another round of massage or her first trimester exhaustion … or just the sheer peace of being someone she knows isn't going to turn on her.

Even if she should, all things considered.

Guilt pricks behind her eyelids: Savvy, who's never done anything terrible, a faithful wife, unable to have her own children. And here she is pregnant with the second baby she doesn't deserve.

"Addie?" Savvy rolls over blearily. "It's so early."

"You can go back to sleep."

"I can't. Not when you … thinking so loudly." Savvy pushes herself up on her elbows – they both take a moment to admire her plastic surgeon's handiwork as she adjusts her silky chemise – and then looks at her. "Addie. It's going to be okay."

"Yeah? How do you figure that?"

Savvy sighs. "I just do. I knew you two would try to work it out, and I was right. You and Derek … you were always meant to be."

"What if we weren't?"

"What if you were?" Savvy sits up. "What if he's happy about the baby, Ad – what if he's happy about _you?_ Is that what you're really worried about?"

She blinks, feeling a little disoriented again. "I don't understand."

Savvy just covers one of her hands with her warmer one. "Let's get some breakfast. It's the most important meal of the day, you know."

"I heard something about that recently." Addison shoots her friend a grateful smile, glad the subject is over.

..

He wakes to the mattress dipping next to him; for half a sleep-clouded second he thinks Addison is back. But it's just Doc panting over him, urging him up.

It's early, but it's fine: it's easier to breathe outside, in the early morning light, while a dog scampers joyously around him.

"Derek?"

He glances over.

"… does Addison know where you are?"

He offers a half-smile to cover his discomfort, but based on her expression it's not working. "I'm sure she could guess that I'm walking Doc."

She raises her eyebrows.

"She's not here," Derek continues. "She stayed with her friend last night, at her hotel."

Meredith pauses, propping a hand on her hip. "What are you saying?"

"I'm not saying anything." Derek is confused. "What do you mean?"

She just shakes her head.

"Meredith." He softens his voice. "You don't need to worry about Addison."

She blinks. "What does – no, never mind."

Doc bounds up then, and Meredith spends some time crouched down, petting him, before she stands back up again.

"What's wrong?" he asks.

"I'm tired."

"From work," he guesses.

"Yeah … that too." Meredith exhales audibly, then starts walking again; he catches up down the trail until they're side by side again. "I'm tired of keeping secrets, Derek," she says.

"Meredith – "

"No. It's enough. It's enough secrets. I don't want to keep any more."

" _Meredith_."

"I don't know if this is such a good idea. Walking, I mean," she clarifies.

He blinks, taking it in. Meredith doesn't want to walk Doc anymore? It's something to do with her sense of guilt over Addison, then – even though it's not at all her fault?

"Okay," he says gently. "That's your choice. But … won't you miss Doc?"

She spends some time petting the dog again. "I'll miss him either way," she says quietly. "Whether I see him or not. He's not my dog anymore – that's what I miss."

"Meredith … ." He waits for her to look at him. "If something's bothering you, you can tell me."

"Derek … I just did."

He stares while she walks ahead with Doc, and then she pauses again, turning around. The wind moves wisps of hair around her face. Her eyes look sad, but more than that … they look almost … accusatory. As if _he's_ done something wrong.

"Okay. I'll ask you something," she says. "If you're my friend, and I'm your friend, why haven't you told Addison about … this?" She gestures in the general direction of Doc and the trail.

Wordlessly, he shrugs.

"That's not good enough."

"Meredith." Weary, he massages the back of his neck. "Don't."

"Don't what? Ask you not to … hide me?"

"Don't – nag me," he says, hesitating a moment before finishing the sentence, "about things that aren't my fault. I don't need that from you. I already have a wife."

"You _already have a wife_ ," Meredith repeats, slowly. "So you do know how to say those words, when you want to."

The unfairness of it stings, but before he can respond she's tossed another stick for Doc and then, to the dog's delight, chased him up the trail.

She's too far away now, ponytail whipping in the wind, to hear him even if he did have a response.

..

Addison's taken the morning off, and she feels more human than she has in a while, more optimistic too – playing tourist with Savvy at Pike Place Market, hopping a ferry just because they can and cruising Puget Sound while the wind moves their hair. The views from the deck are striking, Mt. Rainier looming behind the skyline on their return. Addison, who grew up in a state whose mountains were as subdued and discreet as its residents, isn't sure she'll ever be used to the sheer scale of it.

"It's pretty here," Savvy says as they dine on fresh fish – not without a fair bit of ribbing on both sides – at another place her partner recommended. "I could get used to this."

"Really?" Addison sips her mineral water. "You?"

" … to visit, I mean. Since my best friend lives here now."

She takes in the words, doesn't try to correct her. _I live here now._

It's with reluctance that she accompanies Savvy back to the Archfield to gather her things, and then stands in the glass and marble lobby blinking back tears. Having Savvy here felt like breathing pure oxygen. Now she's leaving – and Addison's going to be alone again.

"I'm going to tell him," she tells Savvy as the gloved concierge sends the valet to get a car for her. "Tonight's the night."

She wants to believe it. She really does.

"Good." Savvy squeezes her hand. "You'll feel better when you do."

"You think?"

"I really do. And you _are_ going to show at some point …"

"I'm only eight and a half weeks."

"But the boobs are the first to show – right?" Savvy grins at her.

"Mm, true. But." Now it's Addison's turn to grin. "They're still not going to hold a candle to yours."

"I'll pass your compliments on to my plastic surgeon." Savvy hugs her and Addison closes her eyes, absorbing the familiar smell of her friend's perfume. She's going to miss her.

"I'm going to miss you," Savvy says softly as if she's read her mind. "But I'm just a flight away."

Addison wipes her eyes.

"Don't cry, Addie." Savvy hugs her again. "It's okay to be homesick, but you – I'm happy for you. For both of you." She pauses. "For all three of you."

"Oh, Sav."

For a moment they just stand with their arms around each other.

"You'll always have a home in New York," Savvy says as she draws back. "But … I think your home is here now."

She can't help wincing a little at the thought of Seattle as _home_.

"Addie … your baby was conceived here. What's homier than that?"

Addison has to blink back more tears.

"And you'll try to give Derek a chance, Ad … right?"

Her stomach tightens. "What if he – "

"I really don't think he will," Savvy says patiently. "And if he does … " She holds her phone aloft. " …just call me. I still have a key to the brownstone, you know. I'll let myself in and smash his old guitar even though it – "

" – _might be worth something someday_ ," Addison chimes in along with her.

They both laugh, which isn't that far from crying, and they hug one last time.

..

 _Tonight's the night._

She repeats the mantra to herself for the whole drive.

Doc leaps up on her as soon as she opens the door to the trailer, after a few unavoidable hours at the hospital that at least distracted her somewhat from her dilemma.

She doesn't bother to change out of her work clothes, just sets down her things, replaces her heels with wellies and then lets Doc run circles around her on the darkened grass. Once he's tired himself out, she settles on one of the porch chairs and Doc, apparently not willing to leave her side after her two-night absence, flops across her feet.

 _I get it, boy. I have abandonment issues too._

She fingers the buttons on her phone. Savvy's still in the air.

"It's just you and me," she tells Doc out loud. He barks in apparent agreement, and she rests her chin in her hand on the armrest of the chair until Doc barks again, twice, as yellow beams cut through the darkness.

"You're home early," she says, surprised, once Derek has parked and made his way toward her, Doc leaping around his legs the whole time.

If _home_ surprises him, he makes no sign, just pecking her lips with something between habit and duty when she stands up from her chair.

"Early for you, I mean," she clarifies. She's not trying to start something, not really, but he doesn't rise.

"And you're home," that's all he says, nodding toward the trailer.

"Yeah … well, Savvy left," she admits.

"Ah." He opens the door and she follows him inside, Doc darting between them. Derek sets down his bag. "So you're moving back in, then?"

She frowns. "I never moved out."

But there's a flicker of amusement in his eyes.

He's kidding.

 _Is_ he kidding?

It's exhausting, reading his moods.

Seattle is exhausting.

 _Pregnancy_ is exhausting.

She's exhausted … full stop.

"Addison."

She glances up. It's a banner moment when the three syllables of her full name, in his voice, carry no hint of resentment or obligation.

 _He hates me not – he said so. He meant it._

Now his head is tilted slightly, his expression … concerned, and she feels a lump in her throat.

"What is it?" he asks her quietly.

 _Tell him._

"I'm just – I'm going to miss Savvy."

Derek nods, not looking particularly troubled – of course not, leaving her friends was her choice and her penance. Part of her penance.

She hears Savvy's voice: _you'll try to give Derek a chance, right?_

Her heart twinges, a little, from missing Savvy already: that particular brand of unconditional love and toughness. She's never been convinced she deserves it … but god, it was nice to have it here, even just for a couple of days.

"You want a drink?" Derek asks now. "Or are you still … detoxing?"

His pronunciation of the word makes clear what he thinks of the concept; normally, she'd agree.

She looks across the trailer at her husband – not a set of words she ever thought she'd be able to say about her own life, but then her life has taken so many twists and turns this last year predictability is a relic of an Addison that no longer exists.

Slowly, she just nods; it's easier than deflecting.

And then she watches Derek rooting in the cabinets, pouring shots with deft movements. With his back to her, just tousled hair and the achingly familiar set of his shoulders, she feels a rush of affection. If his eyes are cold now, thinking of her, at least she can't see them.

There was a time, of course, when Derek was her safe place. When her soundest sleep was in his arms, not in a hotel bed in a strange city. When his eyes were soft, looking at her. When he was genuinely happy to see her, focused on her.

Loving and attentive.

Present.

When he was _there_.

"Addison?"

She looks up as he indicates her drink. "Did you want this, or … ?"

He's here now. He's standing next to her untouched drink, head cocked slightly, expression a little quizzical but also devoid of anger.

 _Tonight's the night._

She can do this.

"Derek …"

He nods.

And then anxiety courses through her, weakening her legs. Great – all she needs is to pass out again.

"Addie." He looks concerned when she glances up again.

 _I'm pregnant._

How hard can it be – just two words. Scary ones, but short ones. _I do_ , that's what they said to each other eleven years ago. They were so young, so naïve – babies, really, barely older than the one they've made together. That was two words. _I do._

 _I'm pregnant._

"We, um … we should talk," she says quietly. "If you have time."

She braces herself but he just nods.

He doesn't even look surprised.

He actually looks _less_ surprised now, in fact. Fleetingly, she wonders if he's figured it out – but he can't have, because she obscured the information on her chart. She mimed the birth control pill when he mimed his question, too.

She lied, that day.

Her stomach turns over, and she swallows hard. "Okay. Just … give me a second," she says.

He nods again. She can't see most of his face; he's studying the little remaining liquid in his empty tumbler.

She's just about to close the bathroom door – she's not nauseated, not really, but somehow the baby is already making her pee twice the normal amount, without making her breasts look any better in a sweater, which seems unfair – when her phone rings. The curse of the obstetrician; she can't just let it go to voicemail, not when she told a patient this afternoon that –

"Derek – check who it is?"

From the sound of it, he's already picked up her phone; he knows the drill.

"No name," Derek calls through the now-closed door, "but it's a 206."

Seattle.

Ugh.

"Can you pick up and have them wait if it's a patient – but don't take any information," she adds hastily.

"I'm a doctor too," he reminds her through the closed door, with some measure of annoyance, but she can also hear him answer, _Addison Shepherd's line_ , which is actually sort of cute, and then she turns on the sink and can't hear anything else.

When she opens the door Derek is standing a few feet from the bathroom, his back to her, seemingly staring out the window.

"Derek?"

He turns to face her with an expression in his eyes she can't identify, and she knows _all_ his expressions … or at least she thought she did, after sixteen years.

But this one, this one is new.

She glances down at the phone that's still in his hand, trying to figure out what happened.

"Derek?" she asks, a little confused. "Was it a patient, on the phone?"

"It was not a patient on the phone." He's still staring at her. "It was the Archfield on the phone."

"Oh." That's odd. She must have ended up on some – call list or rewards list or whatever.

Which still doesn't explain Derek's expression.

"Did they – I mean, is everything okay?" she asks hesitantly.

"You'll have to tell me," Derek says, lifting an eyebrow. "They called to say you left your bracelet at the spa after your prenatal massage."

All the air leaves her lungs as she realizes she was right about one thing, anyway …

 _Tonight's the night._

* * *

 _ **To be continued.** _If _you're going to throw something, at least make it something nice and warm because it's frrrreezing here. But you know the deal: you keep being the best readers ever, and I will post the next chapter within the week. I am so ready for it. Are you? Reviews keep me warm in the winter and prolific year-round, so I hope you'll let me know what you think. Thank you, and long live the Addek Revolution (going strong since 2017)!_


	8. Gravida One

_**A/N: Thank you, as always, for being such awesome readers and reviewers. I really wanted to get this chapter up by Sunday night, and this totally counts as long as your watch is slow on the east coast and/or you live in Chicago, Denver, or San Francisco. Whatever day or time is is wherever you are, I hope you enjoy this chapter. Happy Sunday/Monday and happy reading!**_

 _ **(Oh, and happy belated birthday to msmiumiu and thank you Right Hand Blue for the funny comment in your review that made it into the intro for this chapter!)**_

* * *

 _ **Gravida One**_

 _Gestational Age: eight weeks, four days  
_ _Baby is: outed by a loudmouth masseuse  
_ _People Who Know So Far:_ _embryo, former mistress, mom-of-embryo, cross-country best friend, one Archfield spa masseuse and, it seems, her husband (finally)  
_ _Number of Stars in the Review She Plans to Give the Archfield Spa: One (if she's feeling generous)_

* * *

The trailer shimmers in front of her eyes, his words echoing off the very close walls: _they called to say you left your bracelet at the spa after your prenatal massage._

She's going to kill that indiscreet masseuse ... assuming she lives through the night.

Briefly, she wonders if now would be a good time to faint, maybe, a little distraction –

 _No_.

There's been enough distraction. Tonight's the night. And Derek is still staring at her.

"I … ."

But her voice trails off.

"You had a prenatal massage," Derek offers when she can't finish the sentence.

Wordlessly, she nods.

"How was it?" he asks, his tone just this side of sarcastic.

"It was nice," Addison whispers.

"I'm so glad to hear it." Derek pockets the phone. "Addison – what the hell is going on?"

"I'm … ."

Mute.

She's mute?

Great timing for it.

Her throat is suddenly dry; she stares at the blank space on her wrist where the traitorous bracelet should be.

"Addison."

She looks up at him; her desperation is loud enough that he must hear it in the silence – right?

"You didn't tell me," he says quietly, "that you were … getting a prenatal massage."

"I wanted to! I wanted to tell you. I _want_ to tell you," she corrects herself as the words she's been holding back tumble out. Now she can talk, apparently. "I've been trying, Derek, I've been trying to find the right time and the right way – "

"And you settled on this one?" he asks incredulously.

"The Archfield preempted me!" she bleats. "I didn't know they were calling. I didn't think they would call. And they shouldn't have said _prenatal massage_ anyway, that's medical information … sort of." She trails off.

"I don't think masseuses are bound by HIPAA," Derek says mildly, "but feel free to lodge a complaint." He shakes his head. "Addison, can you _please_ just – tell me what's going on?"

It's not lost on her that he's been asking this for days now.

 _What's going on?_

And she's rebuffed him every time. Punted. Or lied.

The air in the trailer is electric; his eyes, fixed on hers, are intense but not angry.

She takes a deep breath. "Derek. I'm … pregnant." Her voice trembles, in spite of herself.

 _The words._

They're finally out; delivering them was no small feat.

"I'm pregnant," she repeats. It's a little easier the second time.

"Okay." Slowly, he nods. "Okay. Are you sure?"

She blinks. "Yeah. I'm pretty damned sure."

Derek looks like he doesn't quite know what to say, nodding again like he's collecting patient information. "How far – "

"Not far," she says quickly. "Eight weeks and … eight and a half," she concedes, "and I only figured it out by accident."

"By accident." He looks confused.

"I didn't know until then. And I haven't known very long."

"The fish," he says, tilting his head, seeming to piece it together. "The fish, and the fainting … and Savvy?"

Warily, she nods.

"But your chart … ."

The one that said she wasn't pregnant. Right.

"I just wasn't ready for people to know. Not before you did."

The words flow so fluidly she must have been planning it, somehow, without knowing – and he seems convinced.

 _Why am I more convincing when I'm stretching the truth than when I'm telling it?_

"Derek – "

He lifts a hand and she falls silent at the wordless message. It's so quiet that she can hear both of them breathing. Her heart is pulsing within her.

The baby's heart … pulsing within that.

Her pregnancy has never felt realer and yet this exchange has been so surreal part of her wonders if she fainted again.

Instinctively, she finds herself reaching for something to steady herself – there, her fingers grip something hard. The counter.

He takes a few steps toward her and she grips the counter harder, not sure what he's planning. His eyes are lowered, and when he raises them to meet hers they have that same dark intensity.

 _How can you have new expressions after sixteen years?_

But she knows the answer to that. She's given him new information. After sixteen years, she's said the words, _I'm pregnant_ , for the very first time.

Just the thought that she and her husband could still _have_ first times is shocking.

Not the least what this particular first time means.

He just looks at her for a moment.

Silent.

"You're really pregnant?" he asks finally, his voice a little husky.

"I'm really pregnant," she whispers.

His head tilts slightly; his eyes are soft but there's a question in them she can anticipate, easily, after all their years together of her excruciatingly careful contraception.

"Are you – "

"I'm happy," she says quietly, before he can finish. "I was surprised and obviously we, um, we didn't plan this, but … I'm happy about it."

He's close enough that she can see the movement in his throat as he swallows, hard.

She feels a quick, painful stab of guilt. _This is great news! It's great, Addison, of course I'm happy about it, didn't you think I would be happy?_

Tears prick her eyes. She focuses on the here, the now.

 _This_ pregnancy. This baby. This man. He's looking at her so intently, like he hasn't seen her in months.

Maybe he hasn't.

Guilt tugs at her insides again.

"Derek, I'm sorry, I wanted to tell you tonight, and before that … this wasn't how I planned to tell you. I'm sorry," she repeats.

"Okay. It's okay." He's staring at the middle of her now as if he can see through her clothing, her skin. "Eight weeks," he repeats. "So you've – you've heard the heartbeat?"

"I have," she admits, guilt souring her throat, "but not because I was – trying to exclude you or anything, I was just checking on him."

"Him!" Derek's eyebrows shoot up. "You already know the sex?"

"No, it's much too early." Why did she say it? It just slipped out: _him._ It's the first time she's thought it. And yet … "I just – have a feeling," she admits.

"Yeah?" His mouth tips upward into that smirky smile that first made her toes curl sixteen years ago. "A feeling, huh?"

"A feeling." He's close enough for her to reach out and touch his arm – very carefully, like it might burn. "Derek, I'm sorry, I really am, I wanted to tell you – "

And then she's not talking anymore because he's taken her face in his hands and he's kissing her deeply, more so than she can remember in more time than she wants to count and she stops trying to talk at all. Stops doing anything except sinking into the feeling of being, for the first time in too long, the center of his world.

 _God_ , it's a good feeling.

"Stop apologizing," he says when he draws back.

"Okay." She's a little breathless when she says it, and it makes him smile.

"You're happy," he says.

"I'm happy." She feels her stomach tighten. "Look, I know things aren't – " She stops talking, not sure where she was going – and whether she wants to. He's looking at her expectantly. "If you're …"

"I'm happy," he says simply.

That's all.

Her lips are still tingling from his when he pulls her close.

" _Pregnant_ ," he says against her head, with a touch of wonder.

"Pregnant," she confirms.

"But you're all right." He pushes her back, holding both her shoulders and looking at her face. "You feel all right?"

"Yes. Well, I'm pretty tired, to be honest."

Derek's eyes widen and he starts pulling her toward the bed at a concerned half-run like a 1960s sitcom husband. "You need to rest!" he says urgently. Doc joins the fray, adding his cheerful barking energy to the chaos.

"Down, boy," Derek says as Addison laughs a little. He's scratching Doc's muzzle with one hand, holding Addison's arm with the other. "You're going to be a big brother," he says to Doc, "aren't you," and Addison gulps on a lump in her throat.

Her husband turns back to her. "Sit down!" he says in that same urgent tone, like she has a broken leg.

"Derek – " She laughs a little. "I'm fine now, I just meant tired in general."

He folds his arms, standing over her, and it's pretty nice to be fussed over – she can admit that – so she lets him guide her down to sit on the bed, still wearing the clothes she wore home from work.

"You need to rest. You can't rest in that." A frown creases Derek's forehead, and he gestures generally toward her outfit. "Should you really be wearing things like that, Addie? Won't the baby be – compressed?"

Addison blinks. "Are you a doctor? And more importantly, are you saying I'm fat?"

"No, of course not," Derek says immediately; he may have forgotten half their marriage but apparently his reflexes are still intact. "Just that your skirt is, uh, it's – tight."

"Excuse me." Addison stands up again – noting how her husband moves closer when she does as if she's suddenly forgotten how to balance – and smooths down her skirt. "I don't remember your complaining about the _tightness_ of this skirt, Derek. In fact, I thought you liked this skirt."

"I do like this skirt," he says. "Or I did."

She raises her eyebrows.

"It's just, you know, that was before you were pregnant."

She bites her lip. He looks so serious; she's not going to laugh. Still, she should nip this in the bud. "So I have to switch to muumuus now?" she demands, propping a hand on her hip.

"Pajamas," he suggests, spreading his hands. "A compromise."

The scrap of fabric he hands her can't really be called pajamas, even charitably – much less a compromise – it's a little slip of a silky thing and she finds herself smiling now that he's still such a _guy_ , after all these years.

She figures it's the least she can do for him, after having had the news of impending fatherhood broken to him by a stranger at the Archfield spa, so she changes into the silky little chemise.

And then tugs at the straps, trying to figure out why it doesn't seem to fit as smoothly as usual. It's almost like the bodice –

 _Oh, what do you know._ She's finally getting more than just a smaller bladder.

Did it happen overnight? Were they waiting for her husband to get clued in before they blossomed or – either way, she's not going to question it. She turns a few more times. No. No questioning here.

Derek's eyes widen when she walks out of the bathroom; apparently, it's not lost on him either.

"It's perfectly normal in early pregnancy," she says with dignity.

"Perfectly," he repeats, extending a hand to toy with one of the narrow straps, staring. "That's a good adjective."

"It was an adverb."

"Semantics." He pulls her close and she laughs a little when his eyes widen even more. "What was I saying?" he asks.

"I don't know." She smiles at his dazed expression.

"I don't know either. Let's take a closer look," he says with feigned seriousness.

"Careful," she says automatically, recognizing his intent. "I'm – "

" – sensitive." He smiles at her now. "Oh, I'm well aware."

She laughs again at his expression while she pretends to try to fend him off.

She doesn't try very hard.

..

"I can't believe this," he says quietly, in the dark, from behind her. It's a banner night: she's lying in the good spot on the side closer to the door, a concession he actually offered himself when she mentioned oh-so-causally how often their baby has her up to pee.

His arm is draped over her waist and for once she doesn't even try to move his hand when it settles over her stomach. He's palming the silky fabric over the flesh that hasn't changed at all – not where he can feel it.

Inside, where their baby is growing … everything is different.

She finds herself resting her own hand over his so that their folded fingers are cradling her belly together.

She told him. She said the words – okay, fine, the Archfield masseuse implied the words first, but then she said them. She did.

It's good. It feels good; she's lighter, her breaths somehow deeper, as sleep starts to overtake her.

So if there's a little guilt tugging at the corners of her mind, a little shadow – she'll have to push it aside. Now isn't the time.

Derek knows … and Derek's _happy_ about it. He's actually happy about it.

And that's all that matters right now.

..

She falls asleep first within the circle of his arm – she didn't even protest when he rested a hand on the silky fabric covering the spot where their child is growing.

Their _child._

 _Their_ child.

The enormity of it is crushing and yet there's a lightness, a – rightness. Pieces falling into place, questions answered.

She shifts a little and he moves his hand to stroke her hair, propping himself up an elbow above her.

Addison … pregnant.

The words are playing on a loop behind his eyes while he watches her, propped up in bed.

Pregnant.

Addison.

Pregnant.

She's sleeping peacefully once more, spooned against him; from his vantage point he can see deep breaths escaping her slightly parted lips and feel the expansion and release of her rib case adjacent to his.

This close, he can see everything.

This close … there are no secrets.

Savvy knew – she knew about the pregnancy; of course Addison would have wanted her support. But he sees an image of Savvy outside the cafeteria, one hand propped on her hip. Now I get to ask you a question, that's what she said. _It's over, right? It's over between you and the intern?_

What a question to ask – he doubts Addison put her up to it; it's not her style.

Of course it's over.

He can't resist moving his hand back to her stomach. It's flat under his palm, no different from the way it felt the last time he – only she was pregnant then, he just didn't know.

The time before that, then.

And before that.

She feels the same.

How can she feels the same – and completely different, all at once?

He's kicking himself for not putting the pieces together, but then she didn't want him to piece it together. Not yet. And she's nothing if not strategic. Nothing if not smart.

And now she's carrying his child.

 _His child._

There goes that loop again, in his mind.

They're words he never thought he'd say, thoughts he stopped permitting years ago, hopes that faded out before the rest of their marriage did.

In the faint moonlight trickling through the shade gaps, he sees her eyelashes flutter on her cheeks.

"You're looking at me," she mumbles, sounding only half awake.

"Marital privilege," he offers, like he used to, and she smiles sleepily before her eyes close again.

All of what felt so complicated, so messy, feels smoothed down – silky flat like the fabric under his hand as he traces the flat plane of her belly through her nightgown.

She's his wife.

She's pregnant with their child.

What's simpler than that?

..

Doc wakes them both at early light, barking and tracking a half circle around the bed before posting his paws on the mattress.

"It's my turn," Addison says sleepily.

"I have him." Derek tips his head to kiss the closest shoulder before vaulting over her supine body and down to the floor.

"Pregnant people can walk," she reminds him a bit irritably, but her eyes are already drifting closed again and he's known her long enough to translate this as _thank you_.

Doc, meanwhile, bolts through the open trailer door with enough eagerness to make him smile. There's something about a dog's sheer energy, enjoyment, that makes it impossible not to hope. The spring morning is crisp, the leaves are green, he's outside in the fresh air with a bounding, barking mutt – and back in the bed he just left, his pregnant wife is sleeping peacefully.

The surreality of it hits him so hard, as he throws a stick, that he has to pause just to draw a deep breath.

He doesn't realize until he's almost back at the trailer, a tired-out Doc panting happily at his side, that it didn't occur to him to tell Meredith he'd be spending an unplanned hour on Tiger Trail this morning.

..

"Down, boy," he says firmly; no sooner has he closed the trailer door than Doc leaps up to press muddy paws on the mistress he's clearly missed.

"It's okay." Addison's hands are buried in his fur as his tongue lolls with pleasure. No wonder they can't train him.

"You need to be careful," Derek reminds her.

"Because I'm pregnant?" Addison looks down at the muddy footprints on her robe. "Where exactly do you think this baby is growing?"

"Never mind." He calls Doc off the foolproof way – by setting out his breakfast – and is rewarded with an affectionate lick before the dog settles in front of his dish to slurp with equal amounts of noise and appreciation.

"How do you think Doc is handling the news?" Addison asks, smiling at him over her mug of coffee.

"I think he has some sibling rivalry," Derek says. "Anticipatory, you know, like Kathleen used to talk about, combined with some parental security concerns."

"Really?"

"No, Addison, he's a dog." Derek shakes his head at her, then points at her mug. "Are you drinking – "

"Just a cup. Well, with two fingers of whiskey." She frowns at his expression. "What, is whiskey bad for pregnant women?" she asks with feigned confusion.

"Addison."

"Come on, Derek, you're not really going to police me, are you?"

"I don't know," he says honestly.

Her mouth opens, then closes again. "If Doc isn't going to enjoy being an older brother," she says, apparently back to that now, "maybe we can train him to be a nanny, like the dog in _Peter Pan._ "

"Those parents should have been arrested."

"Maybe that's in the sequel."

They exchange an oft-shared glance of agreement that should such a sequel exist, they'd definitely be forced by their nieces and nephews to watch it at Christmas.

He doesn't say anything – just takes the cup from her hand to steal a long sip of her coffee before she takes it back to drain the rest.

..

"Remember the bathtub at that one place?" She leans against the door jamb, her tone turning dreamy.

He considers the question. "With the claw feet?"

"Yes, but you make it sound so … predatory."

"I remember the predatory bathtub," he summarizes. "What about it?"

"Nothing. Just remembering it." She sighs a little, looking down at her toothbrush. "I miss baths."

"Ah." He glances around the trailer. No bathtub in sight. "How about a shower … but I let you have the hot water?"

She points her toothbrush at him, amused. "See, that would be sweet, except I've lived here long enough to know that you don't have any control over who gets the hot water."

"That is unfortunately true." He reaches past her to get his own toothbrush. She squeezes a line of toothpaste out for him before she leans back against the doorframe again, looking pensive.

"I still need a bubble bath," she says when he glances at her.

"You don't need a bubble bath, you need an ultrasound," he corrects.

"They're not mutually exclusive."

He raises an eyebrow. "What kind of OB do you plan to see?" he asks, feigning confusion.

She smiles a little, looking like she lost the fight not to.

"You also need breakfast," he adds firmly, seizing the moment.

"And now you know why." She glances at him. "He takes after you."

He has to swallow around a lump in his throat, moved by her words and perhaps even more so by the casual way she tossed them off.

He clears his throat a little before he speaks. "At eight weeks. You can tell that already?"

"Eight and a half – and which one of us is the OB?"

He pretends to consider the question. "That would be the one who didn't know she was pregnant."

"I knew you would hold that over me." She glares at him, not looking upset at all. "And don't even think about fish for breakfast, Derek – the baby's half me, too."

He can't disagree with that.

There's a hum over the whole inside of the trailer: morning productivity and something more, too. The weight of what she told him, pulsing in his chest and his fingertips. He holds her coat for her absently as she crosses the trailer.

It just makes sense to drive in together, that's what he tells her.

She doesn't protest.

At the hospital, she pauses outside the glass doors, hiking her briefcase higher on her arm; the movement splits the front of her trench coat, giving him a full view of the center of her body.

His gaze skates down the front of her silky blouse to the waistband of her skirt to –

" _Derek._ "

"Hm?"

"Stop looking at me like that."

"Like what?" he asks, confused.

"Like I'm pregnant," she whispers.

"You are pregnant," he says, making a face when she makes a _be quiet_ gesture.

"I know that, Derek, and you know that, but the rest of the hospital doesn't and I don't want them to, so you have to stop looking at me like I'm going to go into labor any minute … please."

He frowns at her.

"I mean, it's sweet," she says, almost shyly. She reaches out and tucks a hand into the crook of his arm, pausing a little as if expecting him to push her away. "It's sweet, but since we're keeping it under wraps for now …."

"Right."

Under wraps. He can do that.

They walk into the hospital together with their shared secret.

..

As they agreed, during a car ride where conversation about her pregnancy dominated as NPR played in the background, she seeks out the MFM fellow who's least likely to gossip: she's new, doesn't seem to socialize much, and is going to want a letter of recommendation from Addison at the end of the year.

They make plans to meet up for the ultrasound with enough precision that it's half CIA mission and half the way they'd have to sneak into the garage after midnight to get any privacy at the Shepherd house on Christmases before they were married.

Now her heart is pounding so hard and so fast as she slips into the exam room – on the sixth floor, entering the wing from the front while she directed Derek to do the opposite – that she's not sure if its hers or the baby's.

"Did you count to fifty first?" she asks Derek as soon as he opens the exam room door.

He raises his eyebrows in response, her cheeks color, and she has a sudden memory she must have tried to block out from much earlier in their marriage, a flight to California where several glasses of complimentary champagne led to some less-than-quality decision-making.

"No one saw me," he says, "and if they did – they'd probably assume I was treating a patient."

"This is why we need an OB somewhere else," Addison announces to the room at large.

Derek glances at her outfit. "Are you going to change?"

"Why, do you think my skirt is too tight to fit a – "

A knock on the door interrupts her.

"It's Dr. Sansom," a cheerful voice calls.

"You didn't tell her to use a fake name?" Derek asks in a serious tone; Addison makes a face at him before hiding most of her body behind her husband's, just in case – he seems irritatingly amused by this – and telling the fellow to come in.

Then it's go time and there's no more kidding around about secrecy or training Doc as a nanny or how much muesli a pregnant woman can consume before her unborn child will have to attend a liberal arts college.

It's serious.

It's happening fast and slow all at once to the tune of her poundingly loud heartbeat: Sansom with her swinging ponytail is swearing secrecy and drawing the curtain so she can change – drawing a knowing look from Derek that she'll get him back for later.

She's draped in cold paper and cloth, skin tingling; Derek keeps throwing glances at her that make her legs feel wobbly and Sansom is just bustling around the exam room cheerfully, encouraging her to sit on the table, asking if she's comfortable.

 _What part of this, exactly, is comfortable?_

She doesn't ask it. She tucks her feet into the stirrups like she's asked hundreds of women to do for her, slides down the table and lets her legs fall open and only then does she turn her face up to her husband's.

"A little pressure," Sansom chirps but Addison doesn't really hear it. She's hearing her own heartbeat and its rhythm is urgent and a little frightening.

This is it.

This is really it.

The secret Dopplers were a secret source of comfort.

But the secret's out, now.

Derek is standing next to her, looking curious at her expression, seeming to be listening to whatever it is Sansom is saying.

He knows.

He knows and they're both about to see for the first time except she hasn't seen the baby, only heard it.

She's had no blood test.

She has no proof that everything is okay. That anything is okay.

The probe hasn't even touched her when she cries out.

"Wait!"

"Addie?" Derek looks down at her. "What's wrong?" She sees him exchange a glance with Sansom at the other end of the exam table.

She presses her lips together; she can't quite form the words. Derek is touching her arm now, his face soft with concern, and tears fill her eyes.

 _I must still be pregnant. Or at least my hormones are._

"I'll just give you a minute," Sansom is saying in her friendly way, drawing the curtain.

Addison can hear her saying something to Derek – _totally normal_ , that's what she hears. Maybe she should introduce Sansom to Kylie.

She stares at the whiteness of the ceiling, then squeezes her eyes closed, trying to get control of her breathing.

"Addison."

She feels his hand on her face – it's warm, and instinctually she turns her cheek to rest against his palm.

"Look at me," he suggests, his voice very calm, and with some effort she does so.

His gaze is on her, focused; she can't look away.

"I'm sorry," she whispers.

"There's nothing to be sorry for."

 _If only that were true._

"Hey. This is a big deal," he says gently. "It's a lot. I understand."

"Yeah?" It would be nice if her voice weren't trembling.

"Yeah." He smooths some of her hair back, smiling down at her. "Take a deep breath," he encourages her. "You're breathing for two, you know."

She laughs a little at his words and then swallows a sob. She's apologizing again, not in any articulate way. He brushes moisture from her cheeks, holding her face in both his hands now.

At his direction, she draws a long, shaking breath. The next one is a bit longer and less shaky. Her voice wobbles only slightly when she speaks.

"Sorry."

"Stop apologizing." He leans further over her to kiss her cheek. "Remember?"

She does, although this kiss is quite a bit different from last night's.

He's looking at her with concern. "What is it, Addie?"

"Nothing. It's just, uh, it's just nerves," she says, not quite meeting his eyes.

It's not _un_ true.

It's not a lie.

And Dr. Sansom with her new-fellow energy and empathetic posture – she's not wrong. It's normal to be overwhelmed, emotional, confused, frightened … and more, at the first ultrasound.

Totally normal.

And if she's hanging gratefully to her husband's hand right now, it could be for normal reasons.

Not because the excitement of this moment, the brand newness once-in-a-lifetime first-baby jitters she's seen so many times, is swirling inside of her in a stew of guilt that's turning her throat sour.

Very sour.

She sits half up, suddenly nauseated. Derek pulls her the rest of the way up, supporting her with one arm and turning her face toward him with his free hand.

He sounds very far away – he's asking her something, _do you want to get down, what do you need_ , something like that, and he's standing very close, close enough for her to rest her head against his chest.

She feels the steady beat of his heart against her cheek, through the soft wool of his sweater, and the nausea fades as quickly as it arrived.

So that was what she needed.

"I'm okay," she says, her voice a little muffled.

Gently, he pushes her back, holding her shoulders. "You sure?"

"Yeah. I'm sure." She takes a deep breath. It's less shaky this time, and she feels better. "Sorry, I don't know what – sorry," she says again, this time for saying _sorry_ in the first place, and exchange slightly nervous smiles.

She pulls herself together, freeing both hands to smooth down her hair and adjust the drape over her lap before she tucks her feet back into the stirrups and sends Derek to get Dr. Sansom.

Okay.

Ultrasound one, take two.

 _Here we go._

She closes her eyes, just briefly, capturing the moment for herself. The room is white and small and smells of bleach and Derek is standing over her with a hand on her shoulder; she can feel the warm pressure through her shirt.

"I'm ready," she says.

She inhales sharply at the pressure – Sansom is apologetic, probably worrying it will affect her letter of recommendation – but she's just tense, that's all.

Tense, and terrified now, because she doesn't see anything yet, and –

"Look at that," Sansom is narrating happily and the pressure inside of her is nothing compared to the grip Derek has on her hand. She squeezes back, deciding it's worth losing the feeling in her fingers.

It's worth a lot.

Because any concerns she had that he wasn't genuinely excited fade out at the expression on his face. He's angled forward eagerly, drinking in the image on the screen – she's seen this posture before on the partners of her patients. She's never experienced it for herself.

"Everything looks good," Sansom says, and Addison lets the wave of numbers wash over her, just feeling the thud of her own heartbeat to the tune of the flickering black and white image; Derek keeps alternating wide-eyed studying the screen to turning back to her, excitement making his face look boyish, like the medical student she first met.

 _I don't deserve this._

She tamps it down, squeezing his hand back.

On the screen, the image flickers in black and white; it might look like a blur to an ordinary patient but she can make out every miraculous contour of their baby. She can't feel the probe inside her anymore, not with all her focus on the screen, even the clicks of the measurements have faded into white noise. There's the heartbeat in silently visible proof, the flickering thumbnail of life.

Proof of life.

Sansom is smiling at them. "Do you want to hear the – "

"Yes," Derek says before she can say _heartbeat_ , and they all laugh.

Then everyone falls silent as the sound of the heartbeat fills the room, pounding, and it's just like the first time she heard it except completely different.

Because this time she's not alone.

She's crying a little, and Sansom is tactfully pretending she isn't, and Derek is back to attempting to remove all her fingers from her palm with his fierce grip.

"Our baby has a heartbeat," he says, so quietly she's not sure he even meant to say it out loud.

 _Our baby._

..

"You need an OB," Derek announces.

She draws back the curtain that separates them, frowning. "I just put my skirt back on, Derek."

"I noticed." He turns her around by the hips to help her with the zipper; she doesn't object. "But you heard what Dr. Sansom – "

" _Dr._ Sansom," she repeats, amused. "She's a fetus."

"She's a fellow."

"Fine, she's a preschooler. Are you actually going to quote her … medical advice?"

" _Fine_ ," he repeats, turning her back around so that she can see his frown. He keeps his hands on her hips, though. "Addie. I know you don't want to see anyone affiliated with Seattle Grace – "

She shudders at the thought.

" – and I get it, but let's find someone. This week."

She nods, knowing he's right. It's not easy to transition from keeping her pregnancy a secret with all her might and … making plans for its public progression. From _I'm going to tell Derek one of these days_ to Derek in front of her with his lips curved in a smile and a slick-paper printout of the ultrasound image hidden in his breast pocket.

It's complicated.

They don't cover this in the baby books, not in any satisfactory way. Like under A for _Adultery, complications in early pregnancy caused by._

She just smiles back. He knows now – and that's what's important. She's not going to mess that up.

"Addie – wait." He catches her hand when she starts to open the exam room door, reaching past him.

She looks up expectantly.

"You're pregnant," he says, his voice soft.

A smile breaks across her face, a helpless one; the expression is his eyes is doing her in.

It's everything she's wanted.

..

"What about Nancy?" he asks as they walk down the hall. You'd never know from their matching coffee cups that hers holds a decaf, just as you'd never know from her flat stomach that her body holds a secret.

"You want Nancy to be my – my doctor?" Addison lowers her voice on the last word and raises her eyebrows. "She's a little geographically undesirable, don't you think?"

Derek takes a moment to be interested – even appreciative – that Nancy could be the geographically undesirable one, making Seattle somehow … desirable.

"I meant ask her for a recommendation, not have her as your doctor."

"You know how many of your sisters' babies I delivered," Addison reminds him in a whisper, "and not with FedEx, either."

"Oh, I'm aware." Derek grimaces. "I've been spared no detail for years."

"And now you'll see it up close for yourself," she says with a smirk.

"I'm not complaining."

"No, I noticed that." She looks pensive now, just studying his face. "Thank you," she says suddenly, surprising him. Before he can react, she's leaned forward to press her lips to his.

He's not complaining about that either.

Right now, in this moment, after seeing that flickering black and white image, hearing that pounding heartbeat, witnessing the beginning of a life they made together … he doesn't have any complaints.

Not a single one.

..

The thing about being the reconciling married couple everyone gossiped about for months is that it's mercifully easy to slip in and out of the hospital at the same time without attracting interest. They could be arriving together, or leaving together, or coming in late after the therapy sessions she doesn't really want to remember.

There's no reason anyone would think that they are … where they are.

"She'll be right with you," the receptionist assures them, offering another round of congratulations.

It's a boutique practice in a glittering high rise across town where she doesn't have to worry about seeing judgment on the faces of her coworkers. The seating is soft, the music faint and tasteful. She can imagine the decorator was told something like _welcoming to pregnant women but not, you know, in a tacky way._

There are pictures on the wall, idyllic black and white photographs of babies, all their gentle contours speaking to the miracle growing inside each patient. Addison is well acquainted with the gore and unpleasantness and pain behind each perfect fat infant from one frame to the next – but for once, that's not what she's thinking about.

She's a patient right now … not a doctor.

She's filling out forms and tapping the toe of her shoe against the polished floors.

They're led into a spacious office with sweeping city views.

She exchanges a glance with Derek. _Ah, private practice._

"The doctor will be with you in a few moments," a sweet-faced nurse is assuring them. She's holding a stack of paperwork. "I have just a few quick questions first, if you don't mind."

Addison could recite the form in her sleep. She knows every question by heart, every expected answer, and she's sitting close enough to the nurse to see the notes already on the page.

G1P0.

It's there because of her, because of what she wrote on the form.

 _Gravida one._

With that faint pen mark in the _yes_ box, she already placed herself firmly on the other side of the complaints of doctors everywhere:

 _Patients lie. They lie. (why do they lie when we give them nothing but love) (why must they make it so hard to treat them) (whyyyyy)_

But she's never said it out loud, not here, not to Dr. Sansom or anyone else.

"So you're about nine weeks," the nurse is reciting, glancing at the form and smiling at both of them.

"Nine weeks, one day. Approximately," Addison adds, to be polite, even though yesterday was the day Derek surprised her with a small box of Rainier cherries.

 _Nine weeks: baby is the size of a cherry_ , he recited with such a serious tone it brought tears to her eyes – though a lot of things do, these days, from her extra sensitive skin to the mood swings that she will only private admit are sometimes an issue to the bone deep exhaustion that colors her days.

The cherries were delicious. She pulled each fat red and gold globe from its stem and crunched its sweet flesh: _he hates me not. He remembers me. He brought me cherries._ He's been sweetly solicitous, insisting on driving both of them to work.

And she loves it.

Next to her, Derek is smiling. Maybe he's thinking about the cherries too.

"And this is your first pregnancy?" the nurse asks. Her tone is one of neutral confirmation.

Of course it is.

The nurse would have no reason to think it's anything but.

Meanwhile, Addison's heart pounds so loudly it seems ridiculous that neither Derek nor the nurse notices.

"Yes." Her voice cracks, just slightly, and she clears her throat a little. "Yes," she repeats. "This is my first pregnancy."

Derek squeezes her hand – a wordless communication of excitement, even love … and that's it.

There's no going back now.

* * *

 _Thank you so much for reading! I hope you'll review and let me know what you think and keep me on track for my next update. Did Derek finding out meet your expectations? I hope so, and I really hope you're continuing to enjoy this story. Your amazing response keeps me typing fast and ignoring my responsibilities so I can write (kidding ... mostly?). See you next time!_


	9. One Step at a Time

_**A/N: Happy Sunday, aka QPQ Day! You guys are the best, but surely you know this by now. Thank you so much for your comments on the last chapter. Derek knows now. He knows! And so we move on. I hope you enjoy this chapter.  
**_

* * *

 _ **One Step at a Time  
**_

 _.._

 _Gestational Age: nine weeks, one day (already)_ _  
_ _Baby is the Size of a: cherry (rainier, preferably)  
_ _Baby's Father: knows (believe it or not)  
_ _Baby's Mother: is shockingly not in the doghouse (yet)  
_ _People Who Know So Far: embryo, former mistress, mom-of-embryo, cross-country best friend, one Archfield spa masseuse, a receptionist, at least one nurse, the new OB, her insurance company … and her husband (finally)_ _  
_ _Everything Might Be Going: a little too well (but hopefully not)_

* * *

"Wait – "

Addison turns her head at her husband's voice, rustling the paper-covered table as she does so. There's a sheet, too, she's not an animal – but there's sanitary paper as well, and she's not going to argue with double protection, even if a _lack_ of protection is what got her here in the first place.

"Can you just keep it going for another second?" Derek asks now, sounding a little embarrassed, gesturing at the flickering black and white image on the ultrasound screen.

Addison finds herself exchanging a glance with the OB, who looks touched. She gets it; it's not like she wants to stop looking at the image either. Or at the way her husband is looking at it, soft enough to meld her insides.

Which is saying a fair bit when she's currently in stirrups.

"Sure," the doctor says agreeably, "as long as Mom doesn't mind the … continued intrusion." She raises an eyebrow at Addison, who smiles in return, her heart thumping at the word _Mom._

"It's fine," Addison assures her. "I'm keeping track. For every transvaginal, Derek can … ."

But her voice trails off. They actually haven't set up a bartering system yet.

"I'm sure we can think of something," Derek interjects, turning for a briefest of seconds to raise an eyebrow at her before turning back to the screen.

She can't blame him.

She can hardly take her eyes off the screen herself.

 _There he is._

It. It, not he, but for some reason the male pronoun just keeps popping into her thoughts.

"Your baby is measuring at nine and four," the OB recites, pointing to the screen, "which means – "

"He's big," Derek interrupts, looking pleased. "He's advanced."

"Who says he's a he?" Addison cuts in.

"You said he." Derek frowns. "Didn't you? Or did she?"

"I don't know," Addison admits, "but there are too many pronouns flying around."

"Whatever the sex, the baby looks perfect. You'll come back in a week for the NIPT, we'll have the results back by your NT, which means you may know the sex in just a couple of weeks." The OB glances from Derek to Addison. "Now, I'm not ultra conservative on … ultra, but I don't think we need to bathe the baby in waves either. I'm going to withdraw the probe."

"Please," Addison responds politely, then makes a face at Derek when he looks amused. He makes up for it by giving her hand a squeeze.

The loss of pressure is a relief.

"You can get cleaned up and I'll be back in a moment."

As soon as they door closes, Derek moves closer. Addison is pleased that he remembers his marital duty to review any new third party as quickly and efficiently as possible.

"I like her," Addison whispers.

"Good. I do too."

He offers her a hand off the table, but she directs him to turn his back.

"You do know I've seen you naked before. The evidence was right on that screen."

"Naked is one thing – this is another. Derek – "

"Fine, I'm turning."

She takes care of the least pleasant remainders of the exam before she heads into the attached changing room – it's three-way mirrored, which seems like an interesting choice given that she's wearing a hospital gown.

Even if it's a soft pink one, not at all itchy, and it smells clean and fresh, one part bleach to three parts something herbal and pleasant.

She's not going to complain about how comfortable the office is. By the time she emerges, the doctor is back, ushering Addison and Derek back into her office.

"Everything looks great," she says again, looking from one of them to the other with a big smile. "I don't see any reason for you to consult with an MFM, but we'll keep the option open as we proceed. You're in excellent health, and so is your pregnancy."

Addison glances at the walls – tasteful framed prints, diplomas and certificates; she was chief resident, once. _Melissa Harris Greenfield_ ; Addison found her on a pretext from her sister-in-law Nancy; Melissa trained at Central in Manhattan under one of Nancy's close colleagues. She's young enough to be up on the latest techniques without being _too_ young, old enough to have had babies of her own and to practice under her husband's name, too. He's a anesthesiologist, according to Nancy. Their children – two, it seems, though it could be three, since the attractive black-and-white prints cover different ages – have their mother's curly hair.

They introduced themselves like doctors, at first.

 _Dr. Shepherd, Dr. Greenfield, Dr. Shepherd._

They've graduated now.

"How are you feeling?" Melissa asks.

"I'm okay." She glances at Derek. "Tired," she says. "Some nausea."

"Any mood swings?"

Derek, next to her, clear his throat, and she tries not to laugh. "I guess you should ask my husband that."

Melissa smiles. "The tiredness and the nausea are perfectly normal, as you know, as are mood swings … Derek."

He nods obediently.

Melissa turns back to Addison. "I was so tired my first trimester, both times, that I was constantly afraid I'd fall asleep during an ultrasound," she recounts warmly. "I've never been more tempted to lie down on the exam table for a nap."

Addison nods, recognizing the feeling.

"You have to be gentle with yourself – even if that's not usually your speed," Melissa continues. "Doctor patients, as you both must know, can be the worst. They're rarely the slow-down-and-be-gentle type."

They talk some more – goals and restrictions, the timelines for the next few visits, what to expect at the nuchal screen – this is more for Derek's sake, though Addison certainly could have explained it to him.

"So," Melissa says conversationally now, leaning back in her chair and surveying them. "First pregnancy."

 _How many times are you going to repeat this?_

But she just nods along with Derek.

"And you've been in Seattle for … a little while now," Melissa says conversationally, glancing from Derek to Addison. "I'm a Manhattan transfer too. But it's just hard to think of ever going back, once you live out here. You know what I mean."

Addison presses her lips together so she won't smile too obviously.

"Yes, Addison loves the fresh air," Derek responds cheerfully. "It's hard to get her indoors most days. Unless she has patients," he adds when Addison shoots him a look.

"Exactly," Melissa says. She's looking at the ultrasound images again, then looks up with a smile. "You can still take advantage of all the outdoorsiness, Addison, don't worry. It's good for you to keep up exercise, and get fresh air. Walking, hiking – "

"She loves hiking," Derek says. Addison elbows him when Melissa isn't looking.

"Oh, great!" Melissa beams now, and Addison sees, for the unfortunate first time, a smaller picture on the doctor's desk of what looks like … Melissa, and a tall, wiry man, both wrapped in blue warming tarps with large numbers pinned to their chests.

"You, uh, you ran the New York City marathon?" Addison asks casually.

"We did! A bunch. We like to fly back for it every other year. But the qualifiers are fun too. Do you run?"

Derek coughs politely.

Addison just smiles, waiting until Melissa is distracted to glare at her husband.

"So, Melissa, you've been living in Seattle for a while?" Addison confirms. "We may be in the market for a new place, if you have any neighborhoods to recommend."

Derek frowns. "We have land," he says before Melissa can respond, and of course he's barely a sentence into describing it before the OB is clapping her hands together and sighing with pleasure.

"That's some of the most _beautiful_ land in Seattle," Melissa exclaims.

"Tell my wife that," Derek says, giving Melissa the kind of charming smile he usually uses on female patients and, when he's in a hurry through airport security, TSA agents.

With great effort, Addison manages not to roll her eyes.

"And the lake," Melissa continues. "It must be like a dream to live there."

 _That's one way to put it._

"Yes, a fisherman's dream," Addison responds, pasting on a sweet smile. "Very woodsy. Perfect for … mid-life."

"Addison loves fishing," Derek adds in a conspiratorial tone. "I can't keep her out of the fishing boat."

She slinks lower in her chair to kick him with one of her pointed toes; he moves his leg away but not quite in time.

"You have to be careful about fresh fish when you're pregnant, though," Melissa says, looking from one of them to the other. "I know this is your field, Addison, so you're aware."

"Oh, don't worry, I'm keeping track of her fish intake," Derek says, his eyes twinkling, while Addison keeps her mouth shut only by listing, in her head, in some detail, the various ways she could kill her husband right now.

"She'd eat a freshly caught trout every day if I let her," Derek continues cheerfully, "but I'm very firm about her fish limitations now that she's pregnant. I'm keeping a _very_ close eye on her."

Addison leans close to her husband. "I hope you're enjoying yourself," she says quietly, for his benefit only.

"Oh, I am."

..

Once she's back in her office she has the privacy to smile a little, to enjoy their visit to the OB. To rest a hand on her midsection, over the spot she's pretty sure is starting to stick out, just a bit, and think about how happy Derek seemed during her appointment.

He wants this baby.

Of this, she has no doubt. Not anymore.

As for whether he wants her …

He seems to.

He looks at her. He notices her. He asks her things, tells her things, fixes breakfast for her and their traitorous little muesli-loving fetus each morning, and keeps his fish away from her tremulous stomach. He also watches her coffee intake like a hawk, insisting it's just because he's worried about _muscle memory_ , not because he doesn't trust her judgment. He stops by her office in the afternoons when the nausea tends to hit, if neither of them is with a patient, bringing decaffeinated tea or ginger ale. He perches on the edge of her desk and she catches his gaze drifting over her midsection, his expression the same one she knows she's worn in Seattle, too.

Looking at him.

 _Longing._

That's what it is. For what they could have. What they maybe even _do_ have.

Her hand traces absently over the very faint curve of her belly. It could the potato chips she craved yesterday, which were so salty her lips felt abraded afterwards.

Or she could be starting to show.

With that thought – both enticing and a little frightening – she reaches for her phone. They've been playing telephone tag for a couple of days now, and they can't always talk in the middle of the workday.

But this conversation can't wait, not really, so if Savvy's free, then she's going to take advantage.

"I told him," she announces in lieu of _hello._ "I told Derek."

"You told him," Savvy breathes. "You _told_ him. How did it go?"

How did it go?

She recalls the moment – she's fairly certain she'll never forget it, even if she and Derek too are embarking now on a lifetime of new firsts.

"It went … pretty well."

"Pretty well," Savvy repeats. "Okay, are you going to give me a little more, Addie? I'm kind of dying here."

"Pretty well," Addison says again, "… considering the masseuse from the Archfield spa actually told him first."

Savvy's shriek is rewarding – and hopefully her staff agrees; meanwhile, Addison fills her in.

"Oh god, Addie." Savvy sounds like she doesn't know whether to laugh or cry once she's caught up.

"I know. But after all that … it was okay," Addison says.

"He's happy," Savvy proposes.

"He's happy," Addison agrees, "about the baby. He's happy about the baby."

"I knew he would be. But you didn't know he would be," Savvy reminds her gently, "and now you do."

Now she does.

At Savvy's request, she fills her friend in on the ultrasound and the new OB and the upcoming screening tests.

"Addie," Savvy says, her tone still gentle. "If you went to the OB, does that mean you told Derek the rest of – "

"No." Addison moves some papers around on her desk, needing distraction. "Not exactly. Not yet."

"Honey, what about – "

"I _just_ told him I was pregnant, Savvy. And that was hard enough. One step at a time."

 _And he's actually happy. And he actually likes me._

"I know. I know that, Ad, and I don't want to rush you. It's just … ."

"Just what?"

"Just you waited to tell him you were pregnant, and then the masseuse told him before you could."

"Are you worried the masseuse is going to call and tell him the rest?" Addison jokes weakly.

Jokes as if her heart isn't thumping under her blouse at the thought of someone calling to tell Derek what she hasn't told him yet. Her stomach turns over. She's been getting nauseated later in the day now – but this isn't morning sickness.

This is something else.

"Addie, I know this is hard," Savvy says gently. "But you know, my mother had that saying, about secrets … the truth will come out. In time, it will come out. It always does."

"It just does," Addison says, finishing the aphorism she remembers from when Catherine was alive.

"It just does," Savvy repeats. She pauses. "I just want you to get ahead of it, Ad. That's all. Before it catches up to you."

"I know, Sav."

What can she say?

That _get ahead of it_ sounds terrifying, when her strategy all this time has been to run as far in the opposite direction as possible?

"Addie? You were seeing a therapist for a while, weren't you? You and Derek?"

"Yes. But … Derek thought he was a moron," she admits.

"Was he wrong?"

"No." Addison considers it, trying to be fair. "Well, I'm sure the therapist has good qualities." She thinks for a moment. "His chairs were pretty comfortable."

Savvy sounds like she's stifling a laugh. "Maybe you could go back," she suggests. "Sit down together, you and Derek, with the therapist, and talk about it there. In a safe space."

A _safe space_.

It's an interesting idea, except Addison remembers the therapist's office as more like a _bickering space_ , and if she's going to bicker with her husband, she'd rather do it in the trailer, which is roughly the same size as a therapist's office but, in a major benefit, offers the possibility of makeup sex afterwards.

"I'll think about it," she promises Savvy. "And now you have to tell me how _you_ are – come on, I miss you."

"I miss you too," Savvy says, and she draws breath in that way Addison has heard her do since she was seventeen, preparing to tell a story.

It's selfish, she knows, but _god,_ she wishes Savvy could live closer.

..

The thing is, she actually considers Savvy's therapy idea.

She does.

In between eating the most regular breakfasts of her life and managing her afternoon nausea and trying to stay awake long enough to treat her patients and marveling at the changed atmosphere in the tiny space of the trailer, the way the air doesn't seem to sting anymore – she considers it.

 _What do you need to make this marriage work?_

That's what the counselor asked the last time, in that … shrinky voice.

What would he ask now?

 _What do you need to have a baby with this liar you didn't realize you'd impregnated?_

She flinches a little at her own words.

She stares at her reflection, raising her eyebrows to prod at her cheeks, baring her teeth so she can clean them.

"Your phone is ringing," Derek calls through the closed door a few nights after her call with Savvy, interrupting her thoughts.

She has a quick, unfortunate flashback to the Archfield call that exposed her pregnancy.

But that's silly.

Who else could be calling to give away her secrets?

Well … there's an answer to that, but that's too ridiculous even for her sometimes soap operatic life of late.

(It is … right?)

"Derek, can you check the – "

"It's Nancy," her husband says, closer to the door now. "It's … Nancy?"

He repeats it as a question.

Addison leans out of the bathroom with her toothbrush in hand, relief weakening her legs. "Wait, why do you say it like that?"

Derek frowns. "If you can come out to criticize me – can't you come out to answer the phone?"

"I could, but what's the fun in that?"

"Mm." He raises an eyebrow at her. "You want me to answer, or – "

"No, just let it go."

He does, the phone stops ringing, and he joins her in the now-open bathroom, reaching for his toothbrush and stealing a quick, minty kiss on the way.

"You haven't told Nancy, then," Derek guesses, pausing with his toothbrush outside his parted lips.

"No." Addison removes her toothbrush from her own mouth, rinsing before she continues. "I haven't told anyone, Derek, except for you."

"And the staff of the Archfield."

"Not the _staff_ , just … essential parties."

"Essential parties. Should I be surprised that you consider a masseuse a more essential party to your pregnancy than your own husband?"

Addison pretends to consider the question and Derek shakes his head, looking rueful but also faintly amused. He points to the sink. "Are you still brushing or can I get access to the water now?"

"You could get a bigger bathroom," she suggests, backing away to give him room. "Or – and I know this sounds crazy – a place to live with more than one bathroom. Maybe even a foundation if you're feeling _really_ wild."

"So you still hate the trailer." Derek is silent for a few moments of brushing while Addison watches, hands propped on her hips. "Good to know."

Addison sighs.

"Honey, do you really think this trailer is going to be big enough for your … growing family?"

She's being a _little_ manipulative, fine, because she knows that _growing family_ is likely to soften him a bit.

And it does, predictably, but then his eyes twinkle with something more mischievous than sentimentality. "It's not growing yet, Addie." He gestures to the general area of her midsection.

Ugh, now she's not sure whether to be flattered that he thinks she isn't gaining weight, or annoyed because he's using it to get her to stay in the trailer.

And the worst part is that she knows he knows it too.

She considers her options, or at least the options she would have considered the last time her marriage felt this good. Which was … okay, fine, it was this century, but only by a couple of years.

There's always her pillow, an excellent weapon when it comes to taking down her husband in friendly, if flirtatious, fashion. And then there's skipping right to the endgame and giving him access to the one part of her, so far, where she _is_ showing. They're a little tender, but he's been careful and gentle and his reaction is amusingly gratifying, so there's that.

"This is a great trailer," Derek announces, in that self-satisfied way that used to – okay, fine, it used to turn her on, before he started using it against her. That's her story and she's sticking to it.

"And you have a great baby on the way," she reminds him.

"I know that." He rinses his toothbrush and puts it away. "Don't you think I know that?"

He crosses the room and rests his hands on his shoulders, apparently waiting for her to look at him.

"We have time to work out the next steps," he says calmly. "Let's just take it one step at a time. Okay?"

"So that means you'll move out of the trailer?" she asks.

" … one step at a time. Do you know what _one_ step means?" There's a teasing note in his voice; he moves closer and brushes aside her long hair so he can press a single kiss to the side of her neck. "There," he says. "One. That's not so hard, is it?"

"I don't know … is it?" She lifts an eyebrow.

He laughs at this, actually, shaking his head. "Is pregnancy supposed to give you the sense of humor of a teenaged boy?"

"Maybe you're just lucky."

He studies her for a moment. "Maybe," he says.

He looks like he's planning to kiss her again – and she's deciding how much she can incline her head toward him to straddle the right side of the border between _eager_ and _easy_ , when his pager goes off.

He picks it up. "I need to call in," he says, a note of apology in his tone.

She just nods. It's not like she's not used to both being married to a doctor and _being_ a doctor, and she has no issue with either.

It was the not-being-married feeling, the one they had before … that's the one she couldn't handle.

That's the one that drove her to do stupid things, harmful things, hurtful things.

Things that are still haunting her now, when she should be happy. Derek is happy, and she's happy too.

It's just that what she's carrying in her body isn't just a baby.

It's also a time bomb.

And despite how she brushed off Savvy's advice … she gets it. A timed release is better than an explosion. It's true.

But what she wants is for it never to come out. No timed release, no explosion, no secrets.

Just the baby they both want.

Why can't that be an option?

..

The trailer feels different.

It's a great trailer. He loves the trailer. He didn't love, quite as much, his wife's intrusion on the trailer with her endless supply of _things_ : clothes, cosmetics, complaints.

But that was then.

And this is now.

Now, Addison is pregnant.

Pregnant ... but not an invalid. That's what she reminds him each morning when he suggests driving in together.

 _You don't have to be an invalid to accept a ride from your husband_ , that's what _he_ reminds her.

Most mornings, she takes him up on it.

Now that he's out of the habit of teasing her with fresh trout, her morning sickness seems to have migrated to the late afternoons. When his schedule allows, he stops by her office then, though more often than not one of them is with a patient. She works through it, that's what she says. _I'm a doctor._ And he tries not to hover, even if sixteen years have taught him exactly what Melissa Greenfield told them:

That _slow down and take it easy_ – or was it _be gentle_ – doesn't come easily to doctors.

It certainly doesn't come easily to the doctor he married.

She's not nauseated this morning, at least, but she's distracted, even dawdling. He checks his watch. Is she buying time so he'll let her drive on her own without what he can fairly admit is a bit of hovering?

"The offer's open, Addie, but if you're not ready in ten minutes I'm leaving you here," he says, rooting in the refrigerator for a bottle of water, figuring he'll give her an out. "How long does it take to put on – "

Addison steps out of the open bathroom door, holding one of her endless supply of makeup brushes.

"Derek?" she asks hesitantly.

"Yes?"

But then she doesn't continue, and he takes a step closer to look at her. Her eyes are shining, teary.

Concerned, he frowns a little.

"What is it, Addie?"

She presses her lips together, then takes a deep breath.

"Derek," she says again.

"Addison," he responds, tilting his head to take her in, not sure where this is going.

"… will you go to therapy with me?" she asks.

He finds himself smiling with something like relief.

..

"I'm just saying he's a quack," Derek reminds her as they walk into the hospital together. "A quack who charges three hundred dollars a session."

"Three-fifty," Addison corrects, shaking her head. "I know. But a new quack would also charge three-fifty, and we'd have to waste all that time getting to know them or whatever with all that – irrelevant background. Three-fifty for an hour of _did you grow up in a two-parent home_ and _when was your first –_ "

Derek clears his throat.

"Anyway, at least we can skip right to the … nitty gritty, with the old quack."

"The nitty gritty." Derek studies her face for a moment. "What is the nitty gritty, exactly?"

"Oh. It's, you know, the core issues of – "

"Addison, I know what the term means," Derek interrupts. "I meant this is couples therapy, so what is the nitty gritty in … this particular coupling?"

"Oh," she says again. She toys with the catch on her bracelet, then tugs him around the corner by the sleeve of his coat. "I'm pregnant," she reminds him in a voice low enough that only he can hear,

"And you want to tell Saltzman so he can pat himself on the back and take credit?"

"No. Well, yeah." She's still not looking at him. "I just figured we … you know, we'll have a lot of things to work out, with the … changes, and – "

"Addison. I was kidding."

She glances up at him, looking troubled. Was she really expecting him to put up resistance?

"I already said I'd go back to the old quack with you, Addie. You don't have to convince me."

"Okay." She exhales, looking relieved. "I'll, uh, I'll call and make an appointment, then."

"Okay," he repeats. He glances at his blackberry. "I have a patient," he says. "So you'll – call the old quack?"

"Yeah. I'll call the old quack."

He leans in and kisses her cheek. He still feels slightly like he's missing something, as she trails him out to the jeep, but his wife is nothing if not stubborn and there's a glioblastoma waiting for him … one that he hopes will be quite a bit less stubborn.

..

She lifts and lowers her right hand twice after Derek leaves, wishing for a shameful minute that she were back in the seventh grade with bitten down nails instead of a manicure and could take out this anxiety on her much-abused cuticles.

Not that being in the seventh grade was anything she'd want to repeat.

Just in case, she reminds herself of the major benefits of being thirty-nine instead of thirteen:

 _One: No Braces_. It's so much easier to eat, and drink … and kiss. Not that so many people were lining up to kiss her in seventh grade, but those that did tended to leave with bloody lips like they'd been to war.

 _Two: Great Shoes_. The less said about the saddle shoes required by her private school's uniform policies … the better.

 _Three: Great Sex_. That's a complicated issue in her current life … but all in all she vastly prefers even decent sex over abstinence (no laughing, please) – and she was pure as the driven snow in seventh grade, thank goodness, because bloody lips are one thing, but if she'd actually ventured anywhere else with those braces, well …

 _Four: Escape_. Driver's license, credit cards – in seventh grade, her nanny was still holding the charge cards she'd use whenever Addison needed anything – and the ability to just pick up and go if she needs to

 _Five: Non-Teenaged Pregnancy._ Meredith Grey wasn't wrong to call her pregnancy geriatric – it's a standard obstetrical term – but she'll still take that over the alternative.

 _Six: The Boys Finally Caught Up in Height_. Just like Gloria, the last nanny she remembers, promised, and while Gloria didn't add that Addison would be happy to be tall one day, since it makes everything line up so nicely when it comes time for #3, and makes #2 even more fun … well, consider them bonuses.

She's a list-maker. She's always been a list-maker. She'll always _be_ a list-maker, presumably, and maybe their baby will be too.

Hopefully he won't start with _Ways My Mother Fucked Up My Life In-Utero_ or anything like that.

"Addison?"

"Miranda." She lowers her hand guiltily, not having heard the other woman approach – not that she's been doing anything.

"You all right? You're miles away."

 _I might wish I were, after Derek finds everything out._

"Just thinking, that's all." She smiles, hoping it looks neutral.

"Ah. Well." Miranda tilts her head. "Can I convince you to just think with one of my interns?"

"Oh. Sure."

 _Yang. I'll take Yang, or O'Malley, or hell, even Karev if you can't –_

"It's Stevens."

 _Okay, at least it's not Grey._

"You are a gem," Miranda says. "Stevens has been – a little distracted lately."

 _I know the feeling._

"I can keep her busy," Addison says, hoping she does sound too distracted herself.

So.

An afternoon with Stevens.

A couples therapy appointment in the future.

A pocketful of secrets she still hasn't told her husband.

And a baby.

 _You're the best thing on that list_ , she tells the baby, silently, _you're the best thing on any list._

..

Whatever anxiety he thought Addison was displaying about returning to couples therapy … he must have been mistaken.

His wife stalks into the elevator three days after she first brought it up like she's off to battle, on her typically high shoes and wearing that winged cardigan thing that makes her look a bit like a bird of prey.

"Ready?" she asks, glancing at him with an expression somewhere between coy and entrapping.

"Ready."

He's lying.

Maybe she is too, he's not sure, but they walk out of the hospital side by side; she even tucks her hand into his arm although her grip is just tight enough to edge over the border from casual.

He agreed to this, even to leaving the hospital at the obscenely early hour of six tonight – it's still light outside, even.

"Do you remember how to get there?" Addison asks as she glides into the passenger seat of his jeep – somehow she manages to glide, when most people would have to use some far less elegant verb like _clamber_ or _climb_ or even _crawl._

"I remember how to get there." He pauses, turning over the ignition. "How short do you think my memory is?"

She looks at him over the top of her sunglasses. "Depends on the topic," she says.

Touché.

"I remember how to get there," he repeats. "So just – get out all your backseat driving urges while we're in the parking lot."

"I don't have any backseat driving urges."

That'll be the day, but he accepts it, then sighs when she pulls down the overhead mirror to check her perfect-as-usual makeup.

"Addison. You're blocking my right side view."

"You could have waited."

He opens his mouth to point out she didn't ask him to wait, didn't warn him she was going to pull down the mirror for a quick Narcissus – but he doesn't, because she'll just come back with one of her typical retorts accusing him of … a short memory.

He gets them a lot.

 _I always need three blankets in the spring, Derek, did you forget that I'm constantly inconveniently cold?_

 _I always take up most of the closet space, Derek, did you forget that I have more clothing than you do, not to mention more clothing than anyone needs?_

 _I always pull down the mirror when you're about to make a right turn, Derek, did you forget that I like to tempt Death?_

"Derek."

"What?"

"Did you hear me?"

"I heard my name."

She sighs, tipping her head back against the seat. "Of course that's the part you heard."

Okay, so apparently they're going back to couples' therapy just in time.

"Well." He frees a hand from the wheel to pat her thigh. "Aren't you glad you'll get to spend an hour complaining about me tonight?"

She turns to look at him, though his eyes stay on the road.

"It's only fifty minutes," she says.

Never let it be said that his wife has to be right every time.

Just … ninety-nine percent.

 _And a half._

..

She's quiet for the rest of the ride, pensive – maybe a little distracted herself – but she doesn't seem particularly annoyed with him.

Other than when she reaches for the paper cup of coffee in the console between them and he raises his eyebrows.

"Seriously, Derek?"

"I didn't say anything!"

"You didn't have to." She turns to stare out the window. "I've had less than a cup today, I just want _one_ sip, and you heard what Melissa said."

"I know." He grips the wheel, sighing a little. "Go ahead and take a sip."

"I don't want one anymore."

Of course not. With great effort, he keeps himself from rolling his eyes.

Then he feels her hand cover his when he reaches for the cup.

"Now what?" he asks.

"If I can't have … pre-therapy coffee … then you can't either."

"Addison." He detaches his hand from hers and uses it to press at the tension in his forehead, taking advantage of a yellow, and then red, light. "I already said I don't mind if you have a sip."

"So good of you," she sniffs.

"Is this pregnancy moodiness?" he asks as the light turns green. "Or regular moodiness? Or some new, special moodiness? Because Melissa might want to know."

She doesn't respond.

But he doesn't sip his coffee, either.

Fair's fair.

..

"I have to admit, I was surprised to hear from you," Dr. Saltzman says as he opens the door to his office and greets them. "I ... thought maybe you'd left town once you reconciled," he adds weakly.

Or is that – was he _hoping_ they'd left?

Either way, he clearly remembers them.

"I'm pregnant," Addison announces grandly, before Derek can respond, sweeping past her husband, selecting her preferred chair and immediately crossing her legs and bouncing one shoe impatiently like they're keeping her waiting.

"Yes, she's very good at telling other people that," Derek mutters as he sits down next to her. "Not so good at telling me."

"I did tell you!" She whirls around in her chair.

"You told me _after_ your masseuse told me."

"I was going to tell you. If you were nice to me," she adds in a low tone.

He looks heavenward, then back at the counselor. "I'm sure you can deduce this is all my fault," he says sarcastically.

"Exactly. You think you're joking … but you're not." Addison glares at him, then nods with satisfaction.

"You know you could have told me earlier," he says, half under his breath.

"And you know I tried!" she retorts out loud.

"By falsifying a chart?"

"I didn't falsify a chart," Addison says, frowning, looking from the counselor back to Derek. "The pregnancy wasn't confirmed yet, that's all."

"Didn't you say you were _pretty damned sure_?"

"That's not a medical term."

"And yet a medical doctor used it … about her pregnancy."

"I wanted to tell you, Derek, I just wanted you to be decent to me for more than three seconds first so I could get the words out."

Apparently _fair's fair_ only goes for him, because this … is spectacularly unfair.

"I'm indecent to you?" He raises his eyebrows. "This is new."

She rolls her eyes. "Yes, we all know you're perfect, Derek, and I'm an … evil pregnancy hider."

"If the pregnancy hider suit fits …"

"Do you hear him?" Addison turns to the therapist.

"I know he can hear _you_ ," Derek mutters. "You do realize you don't have to project all the way to Portland just to be heard."

"Then why is it that you don't hear – "

"Well!" Dr. Saltzman interrupts them in a bright tone, smiling. "I take from … all this that Addison is pregnant."

Addison and Derek exchange a look of _for barely an hour of this we're paying three hundred and fifty dollars_ , both of them trying not to laugh, and he forgets his momentary annoyance with her.

She's pregnant.

 _Pregnant._

He feels that same swell of disbelieving excitement, of pride, that he's had from the first moment he realized it was true. Like he's been plunged back into the future he used to spin out years before, when it still seemed possible. The one he taught himself to let go, to shut down, even if it meant shutting off other parts of him, too. Looking past them.

Stepping away.

"Yes," Addison says now, sitting up a bit straighter and re-crossing her legs. "I'm pregnant."

"And how do you feel?" Saltzman asks.

She glances at Derek. "A little tired. A little queasy. But mostly … I feel good."

"And you, Derek?"

 _Not queasy at all._ But he doesn't feel like joking, not right now.

"Good." He can't keep himself from smiling. "I feel … good."

His hand creeps over the side of the chair just as hers does; they fumble for half a second before their fingers lock together.

"Well, then." The counselor smiles. "It's a good thing you two have made so much progress in the relationship. Pregnancy for any couple requires a firm foundation and excellent communication, and as far as I can tell, you certainly have those. I'm impressed – you've really turned it around."

Is he … firing them?

Derek exchanges a glance with Addison, who seems to be wondering the same thing.

"We should make a plan today. And we can, of course, continue to see each other," the counselor says. "On an as needed basis, or regularly, whatever works for you. But you reached out to me to meet, so is there anything specific you two wanted to talk about tonight?"

Derek glances at Addison; therapy was her idea.

"Just, um, no, not really," she says, her hand shifting within his. He gives it a squeeze, half curious and half reassuring. "Just pregnancy … things," she finishes.

"Excellent." The therapist looks pleased.

The rest of the session is just what he remembers from months ago: open ended, mostly meaningless questions that somehow take up an entire hour – no, fifty minutes. The time is free from the tension he recalls coloring it back then, but it's no more worth the money, if you ask him.

But if Addison asks him, he's going to say it far more diplomatically. He's not an idiot.

Either way, he's relieved when the time is up and they're saying good-bye, Derek helping Addison back into her lightweight spring coat.

"One more thing – "

They turn around in the open doorway. "Yes?" Derek says, Addison saying it along with him in inadvertent unison.

" … congratulations," the counselor says, smiling broadly.

"Thank you," Addison says softly, and Derek finds himself squeezing her hand. He's never left a therapy session with his wife feeling this – positive, this much like a team.

For once, the overpriced couple's counselor was right about something.

They really have turned it around.

* * *

 _To be continued, of course. I love these two so much, especially when they're forced to deal with their issues ... even if they can't deal with all of them at once. There are a lot of steps ahead, but they're coming. As long as you guys keep enjoying, reading, and reviewing, I will keep on the QPQ Day schedule. See you back here next Sunday, and please let me know what you think. I love hearing from you!_

 _PS Who recognized Savvy's mom's little speech on time? (Who am I kidding, any Addek fan.) It seemed right._


	10. Here's to Just Getting Started

_**A/N: Under the wire with just about 45 minutes left of QPQ Day here on the east coast. Thank you to everyone who has been reading and commenting. I am in the midst of a super busy real life period so some of my other WIPs that are close to being updated are still not quite there yet. I hope I'll see you before next Sunday with some other WIP updates too. For now, though, I hope you enjoy this chapter and happy Sunday!**_

* * *

 _ **Here's to Just Getting Started**_

 _Gestational Age: Ten Weeks, four days  
Baby is the Size of a: Prune (with apologies to baby)  
_ _People Who Know So Far: is a two-part list, those baby's father doesn't know know (ex-mistress) and those he does (everyone else, including indiscreet masseuse)  
_ _Mom is_ _Still Feeling_ : _a little too good to be true_

* * *

" … what is it?" Addison asks with some suspicion, turning away from the mirror as she smooths the fabric of her skirt over her hips.

"Nothing," Derek says.

She raises an eyebrow in response.

 _I'm waiting,_ it says.

"Just – have you decided how long you're going to wait to tell people?"

Now she turns around completely. "Are you suggesting I can't hide it?"

Derek sighs. "This is why I wasn't going to say anything."

"I'm only ten weeks. Well, ten weeks and four." She frowns at her reflection. " _You_ said last night I looked good."

"You did look good – do look good," he corrects himself. "It's not that."

"Then what is it?"

"You're … symptomatic."

"Meaning what?"

"You said you fell asleep in your office the other day," he reminds her gently.

"Well. I'm pretty sure that resident just thought I had a hangover." She pats her hair, adjusting a strand that didn't look out of place to him. "Luckily … my reputation precedes me."

"Richard would want to be supportive," he tries.

"Are you really thinking about Richard right now?"

With some effort, he raises his eyes to her amused-looking ones. "Fine, Addie, I'm just saying that people might – that you're starting to look a little different. That's all."

"Okay. I get it." She smiles at him. "But if you want to maintain your access to my _starting to look a little different_ s, then I'd drop this right now."

He does … so he does.

..

Telling people. Telling _Richard_.

It's not that she hasn't thought about it.

She has no doubt their boss would be enthusiastic, in his Richard way – seventy percent paternal to thirty percent paternalistic. Sixty-forty, maybe. Of course he compares favorably to her own father, but then who doesn't?

It hasn't felt right, though, and Derek hasn't pushed her, and she's appreciated it. The fact that she was thinking more or less the same thing as her husband at the mirror this morning is neither here nor there.

So their baby is still just that: theirs. And theirs only.

A secret, as long as you don't count the MFM fellow who swore discretion, the indiscreet Archfield masseuse who should have, the spa concierge, and Savvy, and … well, Meredith Grey, but she's decided to forget that one and she's fairly certain Meredith would agree.

If it means baby-related conversations on work time have to happen at a whisper, or behind locked doors, or better yet both. One of the many perks of her neonatal specialty: sneaking off for an unofficial doppler is easy to pass of as whirlwind patient care, and the reassuring stomp of her baby's heartbeat is the best medicine she's found against the exhaustion that threatens to overwhelm her.

Secrecy requires privacy.

Hospitals are … bad at privacy, even if federal law and its initials would have everyone believe otherwise. She finally catches Derek that afternoon in the hallway, each on the way somewhere, and tugs him with her toward an on-call room praying that it's empty.

It is – but with her luck, Karev spots them both heading in and his smirk makes her cheeks flush.

 _Good. Spread a rumor we can't keep our hands off each other. At least it's better than the other rumors._

"What's wrong?" Derek tilts his head, looking concerned.

"Nothing. Melissa called – " and when fear flickers in his eyes she rests a hand on his arm. "Everything's okay, Derek. She just wanted to talk about the prenatal testing."

The import of the phrase _prenatal testing_ isn't lost on him.

"Routine testing," he says hesitantly.

"The testing she discussed in her office," Addison says, but Derek is a doctor too and sidestepping doesn't really work with him, not medically anyway.

"Routine for … people my age," she says finally, sighing a little, with as much dignity as she can manage.

"Ah." He seems relieved, at least.

"Did you forget I'm geriatric?" she asks.

"You don't look geriatric." He smiles at her.

"See, sometimes you _do_ know the right thing to say."

"If that's a compliment, you should probably make it sound less insulting." Derek raises an eyebrow at her. "And if it's an insult, well … it sounded complimentary anyway."

She makes a face at him, and then tells him what she brought him in here to tell him: her update on the timing for her upcoming non-invasive prenatal tests.

"The first step is just a blood draw," she reminds him. "They can handle it at a lab closer to the hospital and then we'll go to Melissa for the screen, and she'll review the results."

She's explained these steps before, just never about her own body, her own baby, _to_ her own husband.

He nods, taking it in. "I'll come with you."

"Derek, there's no need, they're just drawing blood."

"I want to be there," he insists, and how can she turn that down?

 _I want to be there_.

It's all she's ever wanted.

And it's not an excuse.

It's not – but is it any wonder she's not rushing to tell him the truth?

..

Somehow, both Derek and Addison make excuses convincing enough that their joint departure doesn't seem to faze anyone. Maybe they all think the Shepherds are back in marriage counseling. They commandeer enough time for Addison to have her blood drawn – Derek can see the exact moment, in the way his wife presses her lips together, that she forms and then swallows a critique on the tech's work.

They exchange one of those utterly silent, utterly married looks: he knows what she was thinking and she knows he knows it too, and then she smirks at him and thanks the tech with enough extra graciousness to amuse both of them.

"I feel like we're – cutting class or something," Addison admits when they sit down to lunch. Both blackberries are slapped on the table between them, along with their pagers, and they're a ten minute drive at most from the hospital.

But he can't deny the accuracy of her comment.

"You love keeping secrets from Richard," he says, and he was kidding – he's fairly sure – but something flickers in her eyes when she looks away.

"Addison?"

She ignores him, frowning at her salad. "I should have ordered a burger."

"Order one now."

"Not if I can't have it rare – "

" – enough to moo," he finishes for her, grimacing. He gestures at her plate. "I'm sure the baby appreciates your – vegetables."

"Are you saying I'm fat?"

Derek closes his eyes briefly. He could count to ten – ten months of pregnancy, maybe, which as an OB's husband he's aware is more accurate than the casual _nine months_.

Ten months of land mines and pregnant mood swings and his never saying anything right, her always complaining, and –

And there are tears in her eyes when he opens his.

"Addie." He reaches for her hand, surprised by what, for her, is a public display. He glances around the café – it's open to the air but glassed in from the rain, and the tables have enough decidedly non-Manhattan distance from each other that they have some semblance of privacy, at least.

"I'm sorry," she says before he can speak, shaking her head and dabbing at her face with her free hand. "I'm – I might be having some mood swings."

It takes every ounce of his self-control but he manages not to respond other than to nod gravely, hoping it looks sincere. It seems to work enough for her to give him a watery smile; he, in turn, gives her his salad in a swap of which both Addison and their ravenous unborn child seem to approve.

A lightness descends over their table.

With the blood test done, it will be almost another week before the ultrasound screen that will accompany the blood results.

They're out to lunch in the middle of the week, the hospital isn't clamoring for their return just yet, the air circulating around the café is cool and fresh and the view from his seat is – well, he's certainly not complaining.

Not even when Addison catches him looking and rolls her eyes; he just grins and helps himself to a tomato from her – formerly his – plate.

..

Addison has been called many things – many of them right here in Seattle – but _slacker_ has never been among them.

Today, though?

After a blood test – which, okay, fine, isn't exactly a fun reason to skip out on work, but still – and a relatively leisurely lunch practically al fresco one on one with the husband she practically had to drag out for their last pre-pregnancy meal?

And now, after making up for it with what turned out to be a relatively easy schedule, back in her office with less of her half-fisherman fetus's trademark afternoon nausea, pacing her way through paperwork while she sips ginger ale and catches occasional unavoidable glimpses of her admittedly more impressive than usual cleavage?

It's a pretty decent day, especially for Satan.

Even the new and improved Satan.

So when Savvy calls, it's truly the cherry on top of the Satan Sundae.

The feeling is the same one she has when Derek looks at her with that – focused, concentrated expression, the one she missed more than she would have thought she could articulate.

It's this one: _sorry, did something good just happen to me?_

Because it's understandable that until recently … she wouldn't recognize it.

..

It's not that he's forgotten everything that came before.

It's more that Derek delineates sharply; he always has.

He sees things in stark black and white, in the line between _before_ and _after_.

He's aware his wife sees it as part of who he is – he'd agree with that – and that she sees both positives and negatives to it.

Which is a little grey.

But he's been dividing life into _before_ and _after_ since he was old enough to categorize. There are the two stark lines in his childhood: _before_ his little sister's birth, when he was eight, that altered his place in the family. And _after._ Before what happened five years later – ending his childhood – and then after.

He walked in on Mark and Addison?

Done.

The line was drawn.

And it stayed that way until his wife marched back into his life, white skin against black coat, shading the clear lines of her betrayal into something to blurry to define.

They were trying.

They were _trying._

But even though he let her move into the trailer, let her back into his life, let her into his bed, let her continue to wear his rings and call herself his wife – still, the line was drawn.

And there was no crossing.

Until a new line was drawn clear over it.

 _I'm pregnant_.

Her words – after the words of the prenatal masseuse, of course, but still her words.

Two words to redraw their lives completely.

And everything just … shifted.

He lies awake now, watching his wife sleep in the patch of moonlight cast under the shades , watching the slight rise and fall of her under the covers.

She's pregnant.

She's carrying his child.

Their child.

Of course everything shifted.

Of course nothing will ever be the same.

He's aware that something's shifted in him.

But does that mean she's stopped driving him crazy?

"Derek. _Derek._ "

He takes another half second before he turns around – she's not the only one who can be passive aggressive.

He's met with Addison's annoyed expression, which he expected; she's holding up a printed dress on a hanger.

"Do you see how wrinkled this is?" she demands.

He rubs tiredly at the bridge of his nose. The accurate answer is _no_ , because he doesn't, but he's well aware how that would go over. Anything he says will be turned around into –

"I don't have anywhere to hang anything."

Not true, but he doesn't contradict her. He knows how this song goes, and she's about to get to its well-worn chorus.

"It's impossible to live in this trailer," she huffs.

"And yet here we are, living in it," he can't help responding, and when Doc barks with either loyalty or coincidence he actually feels a shade of guilt.

But no – he can't. Even if he has a flash of traitorous longing for the years they spent in a roomy brownstone where Addison's closet was bigger than some people's apartments. She never complained then about having nowhere to hang her clothes.

"It's not funny, Derek." She looks a little teary now and he takes a step toward her but she holds up the dress like an enemy flag. "And it's not fair that you get to drink and I don't."

"I won't drink, then." He closes up the bottle to seal it off – he was done anyway, it's fine – but she doesn't look satisfied.

"You were done anyway."

The problem being with the same person for more than a decade and a half? It's hard to get much past them. All but the biggest things; secrets and lies – things long-married couples don't have, not from each other. Not when they're expecting a baby.

"You're right, I'm done." He makes his way over to her and takes the dress from her hands. "I'll hang this up," he offers, placating, "why don't you … ."

But his voice trails off. The end of that sentence in Manhattan might have been _take a bath_ or _have a glass of drink_ , either or both of which tended to calm her down.

"I hate the trailer," she says quietly. She sounds tired.

He hangs the dress on the corner of the closet instead of finding more room; she can scold him for that later.

She's still just – standing there. There's really nowhere to go in the trailer. They're in each other's space, all the time.

In Manhattan she could have closed herself in her office or their bedroom to sulk; here it has to be public.

"Forget it," she says when he approaches her across the very small distance between them.

"Addison."

She tilts her chin slightly upwards to look at him on the level, like she only does in flat shoes. "You love the trailer," she reminds him.

"I do love the trailer," he admits, "but I – "

"Forget it." She blinks, the moisture no longer visible in her eyes. "I'm going to go to bed."

He takes her cue – what there is of it – waiting until she's brushing her teeth to join her, bumping her hip gently with his to find some space at the sink. She lets him, and neither of them mentions the trailer again.

He's not ready to sleep, but she doesn't seem bothered by the bedside light necessary for the article he flagged. She curls against him without complaint and he strokes her hair slowly, rhythmically, with his free hand while he reads. It's soothing – to him, at least, and it must be to her because she's half asleep before he's a full page in.

..

She's not asleep.

Half asleep maybe, but not all asleep.

She's reliving their conversation.

 _You love the trailer_ , she said.

 _I do love the trailer_ , he said. _But I –_

And then she cut him off.

She wasn't ready to hear what he was going to say. Maybe she's still not.

Maybe a part of her is still clutching the daisy with its scattered petals like a mouthful of missing teeth.

 _He hates me._

 _He hates me not._

And she's pretty sure it's _hates me not_ , even _hates me a lot not_ , lately. Since he found out and the switch flipped and she's seventy percent certain, thirty percent wary.

Pretty sure – but not a hundred percent sure.

Not enough to let him finish.

Seventy percent certain, thirty percent wary.

Sixty percent happy, forty percent terrified.

A hundred percent pregnant.

She smiles a little at the very unscientific terminology and lets his hand in her hair soothe her all the way to sleep this time.

..

"'s my turn," Addison mumbles as dawn light slices through the trailer, rolling closer to him despite her words. She's seeking his heat –he flinches under her cold toes.

"I'll go." He kisses her cheek, detaches her arm from across his body – and that's when he realizes that despite their typical morning conversation, Doc hasn't actually barked to be let out.

He vaults over his wife's still prone body.

Doc is seated by the door, whining softly.

"What's wrong, boy? You're feeling extra thoughtful this morning?" Derek speaks under his breath so as not to wake Addison, crouching next to the dog to scratch his ears. Doc receives the affection with gratitude but less enthusiasm than usual.

The fresh air seems to perk Doc up, and Derek is relieved until he balks halfway up the same stretch of trail they've been walking from the beginning, sitting on his furry haunches and staring up at Derek like he's asked the dog to climb Everest.

"You're not yourself." Derek strokes the dog's muzzle, concerned.

Doc consents to travel the rest of the way home, but he's logy and slow, and by the time they're back at the trailer and Doc regards his full food bowl with neutrality rather than ear-shattering interest – he's flat out worried.

"What's wrong with him?" Addison asks nervously, awake now; there's no hiding Doc's uncharacteristic behavior. "Do you think he's sick?"

"I don't know." Derek rubs a hand through his hair.

"He needs a vet." Addison is pacing now, her expression tense. "Do we have a vet?"

They have a vet now, a shingle-hanging sort of a Pacific Northwest vet who'll see Doc even though it's achingly early morning for most professions.

Derek carries him inside while Addison frets at his elbow – he offered to take Doc himself but she wouldn't hear of it.

Inside the vet's office or whatever this place is – Dr. Dandridge, that's his name, and he has a thatch of fair hair and a photograph on the wall looking intensely connected to a large horse, both of which he'd tease Addison about if they were here under different circumstances.

"He's usually much louder in the morning," Addison is telling the vet now, the words tumbling out. "He hasn't eaten much but he seems thirsty."

She's still talking as Dr. Dandridge takes Doc from Derek's arms, settles him on a paper-lined table while he starts his examination, speaking softly to the dog as he does.

"And he also – "

"Addison, would you let the man work?" Derek whispers, not unkindly – he doesn't think – but she frowns at him.

Dr. Dandridge promises to keep them updated, and they take turns saying goodbye to Doc, scratching his muzzle and assuring him they'll bring him home soon.

Addison is quiet in the car, her expression troubled when he glances at her as they wait to board it on the ferry.

"He's more than dog," she says quietly when he asks.

"Doc is," he confirms, and she nods.

"He's, um, kind of like … our first baby."

Then she looks away, embarrassed, when he raises his eyebrows.

"I'm hormonal," she protests. "It's not my fault. It's your baby's fault."

"Which baby is that?" he asks as they make their way to the upper deck. "The furry one who likes to eat your shoes, or –"

"Forget it." She pushes him away with no real force; he slings an arm around her and draws her close as the bay spits cold droplet of water through the air.

"He's going to be okay," Derek says, feeling the tension in her body where she rests against him. Lightly, he squeezes her arm through her jacket, where it rests under his palm.

"You think?" she glances up at him. The sea air is moving her hair around her face – it's a little wild, and she laughs when a few strands get caught in her mouth. He finds himself smiling as he helps her detach them and then finally he holds her hair away from her face for her.

"I do think," he says, then studies his face. "You're sure the ferry isn't bothering you?"

"I'm sure, Derek. I think … he might like it, actually."

"He – " Derek raises his eyebrows, glancing automatically down at her midsection and then up again before she can accuse him of suggesting she's fat. "He's a he?"

"This again." Addison smiles at him. "Whatever the baby is … or will be … I think he likes the ferry."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Addison leans against him again, looking out at the water. He can't see her face, but he can hear her voice that makes his stomach feel a little hollow: "Like father, like … baby, right?"

..

He and Addison both have full schedules; they cross paths only once in the late morning, with half a second for Derek to remind her to eat lunch (she will) and Addison to ask him if Dr. Dandridge has followed up (he hasn't).

And then he rounds the corner and nearly skids into Meredith.

"Sorry." He winces a little. There's an expression on her face he can't read – and then he realizes that she should know what's going on.

After all, he was hers first.

"Doc's sick," he says without introduction.

"Doc's sick?" Her eyes widen as she repeats his words. "What's wrong with him?"

"The vet's running tests. We don't have any answers yet."

"Oh." Meredith looks down at the chart in her hands.

"I don't know if you want to – "

"No, it's okay. I mean, I haven't, uh, I haven't seen him in a while, but I just thought …"

"Yeah." He glances over her shoulder; he thought he saw a flash of – but no, he must have imagined it. "Things have been busy."

"I figured." Meredith still isn't meeting his eyes. "Can you let me know what the vet says about Doc?"

"Of course." Derek is a little confused. "He's your dog too."

"No. He _was_ my dog," Meredith says quietly. "He's not my dog anymore."

Derek pauses. "But you asked me to tell you what the vet says about Doc."

"I know."

"If he's not your dog anymore, then why do you – "

"I don't _know_ , Derek," she says wearily before he can finish, speaking over the end of his sentence. "I don't know, and I don't want to talk about it."

"Meredith …" But he stops talking when the expression on Meredith's face changes and then he feels the change in air pressure and whiff of perfume before she speaks.

"Hey," Addison says warmly from behind him. "I was looking for you, Derek. … Dr. Grey," she adds, nodding a greeting to Meredith, who nods back uncomfortably.

"Is everything all right?" He turns to glance at his wife, not wanting to suggest in front of Meredith that anything is amiss. It's tiring, keeping secrets.

"It's fine." Addison glances at Meredith. "I hope I didn't interrupt – "

"You didn't interrupt anything," Meredith says quickly. "I have a patient, so I'll just – go."

Derek watches her leave, and then Addison moves into his field of vision from the front this time.

"What was that about?" she asks, her tone a little uneasy.

"Nothing." Derek sighs. "I told her about Doc."

"Oh. Right, I guess she – well, I guess he was hers first."

They both contemplate this for a moment.

"I thought she made a clean break, though," Addison says tentatively. "She hasn't seen Doc since she gave him to us."

There's no question mark, but Derek has known Addison long enough – nearly all of his adult life – to know when she wants confirmation. And when she wants reassurance. And when they're the same thing.

"Right," he says. The lie curdles his stomach and he clears his throat before his wife notices anything amiss. "Why were you looking for me? Are you sure you're feeling all right?"

"I'm fine," she assures him. "I just wanted to see if you'd heard from the vet."

"I haven't. I already told you I'd call when I did." He's shorter than he intends as he says it, and he sees hurt flicker in her eyes. "I'm sorry," he adds before she can say anything. "I'll tell you when I know anything."

She nods, and he watches her leave, feeling, well … like a heel.

And not liking it at all.

..

"You had me paged?"

"I had you paged." Derek takes her arm before she can say anything else; he can hear the way she sounds right before she starts panicking. "I heard from the vet."

"What did he say? What's wrong with Doc?"

Her voice trembles and he moves both of them around the corner, further away from prying eyes.

"He needs to run some more tests. His white count was elevated, and some of his markers – he wants to keep him overnight."

"Overnight," Addison repeats.

She sounds a little wistful, and he gets it – Doc's warm, furry presence has become the nightly normal. It's strange to think he won't be there.

"You'll tell me if you – "

" – hear anything else. Of course." Derek studies her face for a moment. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm okay. It's not, you know, it's not witching hour yet." She grimaces a little.

"Addie."

"Derek, don't tell me I should tell Richard. Please. What's he going to do, hold my hair back?"

"Someone should."

"You can," she says quietly. "You have, and I – appreciate it. I really do. I just really want it between us, still. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Thank you." She leans in to kiss him.

As they separate, he's left wondering if she's just unaware of how noticeable she is in general.

It's something to think about, he supposes.

When he doesn't have patients.

..

She's waiting in the attendings' lounge when he's wrapped up his last patient. For the moments before he sees her she drinks him in like a third party: the messy hair that was wedged into his scrub cap, the set of his shoulders that says the surgery was successful, but he doesn't think it was his best work.

His shoulders say a lot.

"Addison." He sounds surprised when he notices her.

"How was your surgery?"

"It was fine." His tone supports the message from his shoulders, and then he nods, waiting for her to speak; she feels fidgety for some reason.

"I was looking for you," she says, for the second time that day. She knows she sounds almost … shy, but she can't help it. "I thought maybe we could get dinner at that place – "

" – with the octopus? You're not cleansing?"

Her cheeks flush. "The octopus cleanse is done."

"I thought it might be. Even though it sounded so believable."

She makes a face at him.

"You're asking me to have dinner at the place with the octopus?"

She nods, uncertain.

"I can't," he says. "I have other plans for dinner."

"Oh." Her cheeks flush again. He's been so attentive, receptive to her lately, but it must have been the newness of the pregnancy, and she should have expected that it would –

" – with you," he says. "I have other plans for dinner with you."

She blinks. "What do you – "

"Can I change my clothes?"

"Of course, but – where are we going?"

He doesn't answer.

Not even when he's changed.

She hangs back a little. "Give me a hint, at least."

He shakes his head. "You'll just have to trust me."

He's teasing her, maybe, but he extends his arm and she only has to wait a heartbeat – two heartbeats, hers and their baby's – before she tucks her hand into the crook of her elbow and lets him lead her toward whatever he has planned.

..

"This is what you had planned?"

"This is what I had planned."

He's beaming, and she feels a big smile spreading across her face. Slowly, she rotates, taking in the whole of the vast lobby spreading out around them, the chandeliers on the high ceiling, the far-off clink of glasses from the dim velvety bar, the rushed click-clack of footsteps on the marble floors.

"You know … if some girls were invited to dinner and ended up in a hotel, they might think the guy was just trying to get lucky."

"Are you _some girls?_ " Derek asks, amused, ringing for the elevator.

"I don't know, are you trying to get lucky?"

"Definitely," he says without pause.

She laughs as she follows him into the elevator. "See, you could have gotten lucky in the trailer." She pauses, cocking her head to the side. "Those are words I never really thought I'd say."

"So you can still surprise yourself."

"You could say that." She rests a hand on his chest, glancing at the keys in his hand. It's the same hotel where she stayed with Savvy; but things feel different tonight.

" _You_ surprised me," she confesses.

He looks at her, his eyes soft in the glass-reflected lights of the elevator, and then the doors slide open. He guides her down the hall with a hand at her back.

"Derek." She turns around again when they're inside the room, taking it in – it's big, so big, and white, and so soft and luxurious she might actually cry.

Clothes definitely don't wrinkle here.

And the list goes on and on.

 _Fish_ … don't appear on the counter here.

 _Rain_ … doesn't ruin her hair here.

 _Shoes_ … don't get crushed in plastic boxes here.

 _And no one_ … is glaring at her here.

Derek is gesturing, in fact, toward the half-open door to an large marble bathroom and, curiously, she glances inside.

There's an oversized tub with sloped sides and perfect little dips for less pregnant women to rest their wineglasses and she can already feel the hot water she's already desperate to soak in. Did she moan out loud?

She might have moaned out loud.

Derek looks pleased. "You did say you needed a bubble bath."

She looks up at him, remembering the conversation, touched that he remembered it too. "And you said I needed an ultrasound."

"Well, you've had the ultrasound. So this is all that's left."

"Derek – "

Her voice catches in her throat.

She's not sure what to say.

 _Thank you for listening to me?_

 _Thank you for thinking of what I needed?_

"Doc's at the vet," Derek says gently, "so he doesn't need to be walked and we can spend the night here."

She swallows hard. "I just – "

But she can't quite form the words.

Derek doesn't look bothered. He touches her face for a moment, smiling, and then gestures toward the bathroom. "You run a bath and I'll order room service?"

 _Yes._

Except _yes_ doesn't sound like enough.

So she says it four times, five, and she's adding a sixth when Derek laughs and pulls her close, muffling the seventh _yes_ with his lips.

..

She doesn't deserve this.

And she does know how that statement sounds.

She was more or less raised by wolves and she's aware, in a detached my-sister-in-law-is-a-shrink way that she could probably use some therapy, and she knows about impostor syndrome and the glass ceiling and all of that – but this is different.

This is lounging in an extra-deep tub of hot water and fragrant bubbles.

In a just-darkened enough room with a handful of glass pillar candles.

Did she mention the tub is so deep, so buoyant, that it's like she weighs nothing at all?

(Which is not to say Derek was right to suggest she was gaining weight, even if he'd claim he didn't suggest it at all.)

The point is that her aching muscles are soothed by the hot water.

The point is that she's been longing for a hot, bubbling bath just like this one. And Derek heard her, remembered long enough to actually make it happen, and now he's sitting across from her in a bathtub not much smaller than the actual trailer.

Which is something they haven't done, together, since New York.

They've showered together, yes, but even though the hotel where she first landed in Seattle had a bathtub, she's the only one who ever used it. She … and a fair number of wine bottles.

But now they're together.

She looks at her husband across the faintly steaming air while hot water laps around both of them; the bubbles leave her skin silky and his body is hard enough at their points of contact to leave her a little breathless, a little dizzy in a way that has nothing to do with pregnancy induced hypotension.

Derek is looking at her.

He's focused on her.

He's forgiven her.

… except he doesn't even know what he's forgiven her for.

Her stomach turns over.

Her heart speeds up.

 _The truth will come out._

"Derek?"

 _In time, it will come out._

Half of her is pushing forward, the other half desperate pumping the breaks.

 _It always does._

His gaze is soft, untroubled. What is she doing?

 _It just does._

"I need to tell you something," she whispers.

He looks at her. "I already know you're pregnant."

"Yeah, you got me there." She draws a deep breath. "This is, um, this is different."

He nods, and the ball's back in her court.

"It's – well, it's about Mark."

It's not too dim in the tub to see his face stiffen.

"Not exactly my favorite topic," he says tightly.

"It's not mine either." She reaches for his hand; he was holding hers earlier, toying with her fingers, but now his hand feels different – cool and inflexible.

"Why don't I like where this is going?" Derek asks.

"I'm sorry," she says quietly.

"Just say it." His eyes are different too, his inflection – everything.

It's slipping away, but she pushes forward.

"When you – caught us, that night, it was the first time."

"You've mentioned that," he says coolly.

"Right." Her mouth is dry; she reaches for the glass of cold water on the bathtub ledge, takes one sip and then another.

"Addison …"

He's glancing around the tub, the room, as if to say – _is now really the time?_

Like the Derek before her pregnancy, _what do you want from me?_

 _Can it wait?_

But it can't wait.

And what she wants is – everything.

Unburdening, freedom, to tell him everything and still, after all that, have his love.

She's never felt less deserving. Or more desperate. But she's not alone, there's a life within her that's half of each of them, that's developing more every day and if for no other reason than that … he deserves her honesty.

One more long, deep, fortifying breath.

"It _was_ the first time, that night, but we, uh, there were a few more times after that," she whispers.

"Excuse me?"

But she can tell from his tone he heard.

"After you left New York. I was – devastated, Derek, I didn't have anyone to turn to except Mark – "

" – which is how it all started, as I recall," he points out, sounding disgusted.

"I know." Her voice trembles. "And it was a bad idea, I know that, I was just – "

 _Lonely._ But she doesn't say it.

"So it wasn't a one-night stand." He looks at her. "It was a – several-night stand."

Slowly, she nods.

This is okay. This is step one. If he can hear this –

"You should have told me."

"I know. I know I should have." She swallows hard. "It's just – when I got here, and I saw you were with Meredith, and I was just – I wanted to try again, so badly, and there was just never a right time to tell you – "

"You seem to have that problem a lot."

 _No kidding._

"Derek."

He can't seem to look at her; her heart pounds; her ears ring – no, that's the phone ringing, and Derek is reaching for it – there's only so much relaxing they can do, with their jobs, communication always at hand, except it's not the hospital.

It's the vet.

Derek swings out of the tub, a towel around his waist now while he drips onto the fluffy white bathmat, while she draws her knees into her chest in the water that feels cold now without the warmth of his body, and listens. She can't pick up much from Derek's end of the conversation.

She looks up at him fearfully when he ends the call.

"What did the vet say?"

He studies her face for a moment.

"The vet said … that we're going to have some difficult decisions to make."

Addison gulps. "It's worse than we thought."

"Yeah. It looks that way." His tone is grim, but he reaches both hands out for her, helping her out of the tub. It's slippery, but he doesn't let her fall; he waits until she's wrapped in her own oversized towel before he meets her eyes.

"Addison – "

She shakes her head. She's not ready yet, not the way he's looking at her.

"It's cold," she says.

It's a lie.

Well.

The room is warm, but _she's_ cold.

Derek nods; he leaves her in the steamy room with the other bathrobe, taking one for himself.

He's sitting on the edge of the bed when she emerges from the bathroom; he stands when he sees her.

"Addison."

"Derek, before you say anything, I just – what I told you before – "

"You should have told me before that," he reminds her.

"I know. I know I should have." She swallows hard. "I _wanted_ to, I just … " but her voice trails off.

"Addison," he says quietly.

She shakes her head, a fizz of panic in her throat. "No, just, before you say anything else – Derek, I love you. I love this baby. I don't – I don't want things to go back to the way they were. Please. It's been so – "

"Addison." He's holding her face between his palms now. "Don't get worked up. It's not good for the baby."

 _But what about for me? What about for us? What if not talking about it makes everything worse?_

But she's a coward – no shock there – because the soft concern in his eyes is a lifeline and she grabs it.

She stops talking, just draws a long, deep breath instead, her gaze on her husband's face.

He's watching her. Slowly, he nods.

"Okay," he says, moving his hands to her shoulders.

"Okay?" she repeats, wary.

Is he asking if she's okay, or –

No.

He's saying that _he's_ okay.

That they're okay – that they're okay?

His warm hands on her shoulders are keeping her steady, but the relief is so strong that for a minute she thinks she's going to faint.

He must feel something, a shaking in her legs, because he shifts his grip so his arm is around her.

"Derek," she murmurs, because there's more and she knows they're losing momentum, but he's urging her toward the bed and encouraging her to lie down and she's _fine_ but she's exhausted too and she lets him fuss over her.

So this is being honest.

He opens a bottle of water for her and she takes a sip, offering herself a grim, silent toast.

Here's to honesty.

Here's to telling her husband the truth.

Here's to spoiling the surprise he planned for her, the kindest thing she can remember him doing in longer than she'd like to recall.

Here's to just getting started.

Here's to guilt that leaves you cold and shame that eats you alive.

Here's to working on it.

Here's to _trying._

She has no doubt, after seeing how he reacted to the first trickle of truth, that this conversation will be nothing less than unbearable.

She's started it, pulled a thread that can't be sewn back up and she glances down at the middle of her body, automatically. _You deserve better_ , _baby. I'm sorry._

She's sorry for all of them.

She's sorry for what she has to do.

She opens her mouth to speak, but Derek's expression stops her.

Instead, she just watches warily as he settles on the bed alongside her, propped up on his elbow, looking up at her.

Silent.

"What?" she asks, half curious and half nervous.

His gaze slides down to her midsection and she rests a hand on its very slight – but it's there, _oh god it's there_ – rise.

"You're pregnant," Derek says quietly.

He looks too serious for her to smile at the face that this isn't news, not anymore, so she just nods. Is he –

"This is … a fresh start for us," he continues, his voice still soft.

"Yes," she whispers in agreement.

"It would be foolish to let – what you told me tonight jeopardize that."

"Yes," she whispers again, her lips starting to curve upwards.

"Okay, then." He rests a hand over hers where it cradles the beginnings of her bump and hope flutters inside her where she'll one day feel the growing life move against her palm.

Hope.

It feels good, and she draws a deep breath; she just needs the courage to –

"But that's it," Derek confirms before she can speak again. "Right? No more surprises?"

 _Oh, god._

How is she supposed to look at him right now and tell him there's more? And how is she supposed to look at him right now and lie?

And how are those her only two options?

"That's it." She smiles wanly at him, her heart thudding. "No more surprises."

* * *

 _So ... that happened. Steps taken, steps not taken, and they're just getting started. Just like baby Shepherd, whose big screening will be in the next chapter. I hope you enjoyed, and I hope you'll review and let me know. Thank you for being such great readers and responders and I'll see you next Sunday!_


	11. Physician, Heal Thyself

_**A/N: You guys, I'm so disappointed that I didn't make the Sunday cutoff - but can I get a bye since today is technically a holiday/three-day-weekend type of thing in the US? So it's kind of a de facto Sunday? Whatever day it is in your neck of the woods, I thank you for reading, responding, and being awesome, and I hope you enjoy this chapter!**_

* * *

 _ **Physician, Heal Thyself**_

 _Gestational Age: eleven weeks on the nose_  
 _Baby is the Size of a: lime (refreshing!)_  
 _Baby's Mother Is: sometimes wracked with guilt, very tired, but worryingly happy_  
 _Baby's Father Is: more clued in than before, but not completely aware of everything_  
 _People at Work Know: nothing (except for husband's ex-girlfriend)_  
 _People in New York Know: nothing (except for best friend)_  
 _Baby's Mother Is Also: starting to show (not that she's quite ready to admit it)_  
 _In Other Words, the Ice They're On Is: thin_

* * *

"I told him."

She's speaking to Savvy on the phone, in a low voice, from her office. No more porch conversations these days, not when Derek acts like sitting outside alone in the middle of nowhere is somehow the same thing as the middle of Hell's Kitchen. All of a sudden, her safety is of grave concern. Some kind of cave impulse to protect the fruit of his … loins or whatever, but hey, she'll take it.

"You told him?" Savvy sounds impressed. "Really?"

"Really. Well." Addison pauses. "Not all of it, exactly. But some of it. A start."

 _A fresh start._

She recounts the conversation for Savvy.

"Oh, Addie."

Addison winces. "When you say it like that … it doesn't sound very good."

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah, me too." She leans back, crossing her legs, resting a hand on the pregnancy that's starting to show – thank goodness for high-waisted skirts and billowing lab coats.

Savvy is silent – knowing her, just thinking.

"I couldn't tell him the rest of it," Addison admits.

"I understand."

"You do?"

"I know you're scared."

 _I'm not scared of anything._ It's her automatic, claws out, go-to, and god, it's such a lie.

Another lie.

"Yeah." That's all she says: _yeah._

She can hear Savvy breathing.

"I, uh, I also told him there were no more surprises."

"… you did."

It's not exactly a question – more like reluctant confirmation.

"I did. But, uh, it's not so bad, right?" she asks, forcing heartiness into her voice. "I just have to make sure Derek never finds out. Just, you know, for the rest of our lives." She tips her head back against the chair, wishing she could have a drink right now. "How long could that be? Another forty years?"

"Fifty, with good medical care."

"I'll cancel all our appointments." Addison sighs into the phone. "I'll take up smoking, and Derek can too, and – I didn't know what else to do, Sav. I just didn't."

"I know," Savvy says quietly.

"If I had told him – "

"I know." Savvy pauses. "But otherwise, Addie? You're – you're okay?"

"Well … my dog is sick." She stops herself before she can say _cancer_. It seems wrong, somehow, with Savvy on the other end of the line.

"Is it serious?"

Addison is silent for a moment, envisioning the vet's serious face when they went to retrieve Doc from his picturesque little office. She was near tears, but then Doc saw them and barked joyfully, if somewhat less volubly than usual. Derek lifted him up so he wouldn't have to jump and then Addison did cry, but partly with happiness. They took turns greeting the dog before they sat down on the vet's homey-looking couch to have the Difficult Conversation – the one she's had so many times before, but never about a dog.

"Yeah. It's, uh, it's kind of serious." Addison thinks about the warm, friendly weight of Doc's furry body across her legs when they're all stretched out in bed together. Despite his provenance, he's become so very much theirs. She's not ready to let go.

 _There are options_ , that's what the vet said.

"But there's hope," Addison says, like a patient instead of a doctor, and Savvy's pleased reaction tells her it was the right move.

After they hang up, she spends as much time as she can muster just sitting at her desk in the low light – no fluorescents, only the greenish glow of the table lamp.

She looks at her left hand, studying her fourth ringer.

The man who put those rings on that finger is the same man who still hasn't put his own ring back on. The one who brushed her off the day she realized she pregnant. And the one who forgave her for not telling him about the pregnancy herself, who said he wanted a _fresh start_ and accepted that she'd slept with Mark more than once.

 _That's it_ , she told him, in the hotel room that itself was a surprise, _no more surprises._

..

He's there when they draw her blood. _Non-invasive prenatal testing,_ that's what they call it, and it's nothing more than a brief needle stick.

As a doctor, he's not exactly new to the miracles of the human body, but the fact that there are traces of their child's DNA in its mother's blood already … he has to take a moment just to let it sink in.

 _It takes about a week._

Addison casts a nervous glance at him as they sign out, and he takes her free hand in his as they walk toward the covered garage, tucking it into his arm. She gives him a lopsided smile, the kind that's half something else. She's been all over the place since the night they spent in the hotel, from brushing him off to anxiously clinging to performing one of her trademark diatribes about their substandard living conditions. She's exhausted, he knows this, still nauseated half the time, and now nervous about the prenatal testing as well. He gets it. All he has to do is slide his gaze down her torso where she's concealing their secret to afford her a little generosity.

"You okay, Addie?" he asks as he unlocks the jeep.

"No. I'm high-risk," she says, and ducks into her seat before he can read her expression.

"You're the one who told me _high-risk_ is just a category," he reminds her.

"Yeah, a category of pregnant women who are high risk."

"Addie … ."

"Forget it. We don't know anything yet anyway." She leans her head back against the seat, and he can see her eyes are closed behind her oversized sunglasses.

When he doesn't turn the ignition she opens her eyes again, lowering her sunglasses just enough to look at him. "Are you waiting for something?"

"I'm waiting for you," he says neutrally, not particularly surprised when she tears up.

 _Mood swings_ is an understatement of a term, that's what he's learned, though he wouldn't say it out loud for fear of getting a pointy-toed shoe or worse thrown at his skull. Anything relating to tests, particularly those suggested or required based on age, seem to set her off the most.

Now he just waits patiently while she removes her sunglasses and dabs at her eyes.

"Addie."

"Don't tell me to relax." She shakes her head. "Or to try to relax, or – whatever. It's too early to relax."

"It's not that early," he says automatically, glancing at his watch.

"Too early in the pregnancy, Derek!"

"You're eleven weeks."

She looks over her shoulder as if she's trying to make sure no one is spying on them, which would be … well, amusing, and even cute, if he didn't think she'd also hurl a shoe for that particular sentiment.

"I'm eleven weeks," she repeats, "and that's too early. I _told_ you that."

"I know you did," he says patiently. "And I agreed with you, and said we can wait to tell everyone if that's what you want."

"Stop being so reasonable," she scowls.

"Okay, if that's what you want."

"And so – accommodating! Don't accommodate me."

"Can you write this down somewhere?" he asks, patting his pockets for a pen. "And sign it?"

He can't resist teasing her a little; he's recognized the change in her face and sure enough, she smiles now.

"Don't be all … _lovable_ , either," she scolds.

"Well, that one I can't help," he says. He gives her a fairly smug smile as he turns over the ignition. "But I'll try my best."

..

At night, in the dark … that's when he thinks.

 _A fresh start._

That's what he told Addison, that night in the hotel. That this baby is a fresh start for them.

He didn't miss the relief in her eyes – he may not want to recall it too closely, but he's aware he didn't react quite as calmly to the first news of Addison's adultery. Not that it was news so much as a news _reel_ , a horrible visual without warning – but no, that reaction was different.

Now, in the light of a new day, with a new baby on the way, with magnanimity, he's willing to see it as a fresh start.

To see her that way: his wife.

She's sleeping right now, next to him, her body curved slightly away. He's tracing the curve of her waist with his hand: they've been battling semi-seriously over the changes their baby is slowly making.

Doc is flopped across the foot of the bed in the area left bare by Addison's drawn-up legs. It feels right, having him at home again. Even if his future is uncertain.

Even if everything is uncertain.

 _I need to tell you something._

Addison and Mark.

 _There were a few more times after that._

More than once, more than that night.

A _few more times._

A _several night stand._

He told her that night it was a fresh start, and he meant it.

But now, tonight, in the trailer … he needs a little time to process it.

To process everything, in fairness. It's always been his way.

In the fifth grade, when Mrs. Weatherfield unexpectedly left midway through to attend to a sudden illness, and Miss Crosby took her place, Mark and the other boys considered this a stroke of luck. Miss Crosby was about half their former teacher's age, with long black hair and a big toothpaste-ad smile and – most importantly – a collection of tight angora sweaters. But Derek was the one who marched up to their new teacher the first week to ask about the status of her contract. How long was she going to be there?

He liked to know what was going to happen. He's never liked surprises.

And that was _before._

That was just who he was.

 _Addison and Mark._

What's odd is that they're emblazoned in his memory … yet somehow impossible to picture together. It's just too strange. So many of his memories from the last decade and a half feature the two of them, in every position from arguing over study techniques in medical school to sharing the front seat when it was Derek's turn to sleep on long drives to playing each other in tennis in the Hamptons when Derek got tired of their incessant smack-talking and left the court for a dip in the pool.

Addison and Mark. But they were just … there. Addison was his, and Mark was also his, and so the three of them were a unit. _DerekAndAddison_ was the natural outgrowth of _DerekAndMark_ , the title of his former, formative years. Then they were _DerekAndAddison…AndMark_ , like that. How could they possibly sever him when he was, ostensibly at least, the one holding both of them together?

His best friend.

What's the duty of a best friend?

Savvy and Weiss are some of their closest friends, their closest adults-in-the-city friends, and he summon any memory that's even remotely comparable other than one time the two couples were having dinner, Weiss was late, and Addison went to warn the maître d', and Savvy – who always kept military-precise time on a simple-looking watch that he wouldn't have known before marrying Addison actually cost about twice as much as his first car – looked at Derek and said something like, _I can't believe he's late after how hard it was to get this table._

Derek said something like, _he was probably delayed on the train_ , _I know he remembered the reservation_ , and Savvy looked slightly mollified – maybe thinking of how unpleasant those delays were in high summer, which it was – and then Addison came back to the table and said something like, _I took care of it,_ and she and Savvy exchanged one of their private looks that he knew from experience had something to do with the way they were always getting things from people he didn't quite understand.

And that was that.

Was that how it happened with Addison and Mark? That's what she's implied, anyway, that she was lonely and neglected and Mark was _just there_ , and shouldn't a man's best friend who was _just there_ defend him, in a situation like that? Like he did with Weiss? Tell Addison he was just busy at work, that he knew about their reservations, and their anniversaries, and her awards dinner and his mother's birthday and all of the bits and pieces of things she was always accusing him of forgetting?

How does a man take that opening and use it to get his best friend's wife in bed?

What kind of a man does that?

Derek tries to re-envision that late summer dinner that feels like a lifetime ago, when Savvy complained about Weiss's tardiness. What else would he have said? He tries to imagine taking advantage of the situation. _I can't believe he's late either, Sav. Weiss is such an ass. Hey, want to have sex with me instead, since we're waiting anyway?_

No, that's laughable. Maybe planting seeds, though: _such a shame. I know how long you've waited for this table._ Pause, look empathetic: _and how busy you are at work._

But he has no interest in sleeping with Savvy, regardless of her objective attractiveness, and before Meredith he had no interest in sleeping with anyone other than Addison. And since Mark was the catalyst for Meredith, really before _Mark_ he had no interest in anyone other than Addison.

It all comes down to Mark.

The man who used to be his brother, whose name now is enough to set his teeth on edge, to make some primeval combination of rage and anxiety hum in his ears.

The good thing is … Mark is gone.

He never has to see him, or talk to him, again.

At least there's that.

..

The results will take a week, and worrying won't make them come faster.

(But that's logic, and pregnancy – at least hers – defies logic.)

And it's not like she gets _any_ distance from pregnancy at work, either.

Addison is well aware that pregnant patients are an occupational hazard when you're a trained OB-GYN, fine. But there are still just so _many_ of them. She's in the pregnancy closet at work – yes, still – and sometimes she thinks she catches the spark of something in a patient's eye.

Something _knowing._

And other times she thinks she's just paranoid.

(You can be paranoid even if someone's chasing you – that's the thing.)

And still _other_ times, her patients are perfectly lovely – and exhausted, and harried, and pregnant with their seventh (seventh!) child, and she has to balance medical ethics with her duty to her patient.

Which is fine. She can handle that.

And some of _those_ times … there's a mouthy intern to deal with.

Outside the patient's room, she starts to dress him down. Any points he might have earned with Savvy are long gone at this point.

He just smirks, which makes her see red.

"No offense, but I have no interest in obstetrics or gynecology, Dr. Shepherd. So if you want to throw me off the case, feel free."

"Oh, I feel _very_ free, Dr. Karev, you don't have to worry about that." She keeps her tone calm, but scathing. "One of the many benefits of being a world-class surgeon – I'm sorry, am I supposed to pretend otherwise? Are you only used to hearing the male attendings talk about themselves this way?"

She pauses, enjoying his discomfort.

"Mm. Thought so. Where was I? Right – I've already been an intern, Karev. An excellent one. And a resident, and a fellow, and now I am your attending and you are annoying me. Which is fine – I'm happy to leave black marks _all_ over your record. But you don't take it out on a patient. You keep your mouth shut and you do your job. Understood?"

He looks like he's fighting an internal battle, one she's not particularly interested in, but –

"Understood," he mutters.

She's _this_ close to stalking off but something compels her back into the patient's room.

Rose glances up, looking exhausted.

Understandably so – six children, thirty-eight weeks pregnant?

"Is something wrong, Dr. Shepherd?" she asks nervously. "You're still going to help me, right?"

"Rose." Addison pulls out the chair next to her. "We need to talk."

..

Meredith catches up to him in the hall, surprising him. He didn't even notice her, which is – also a surprise. For months her light, quick footsteps were pretty much all he heard in the hallways.

"How's Doc doing?" she asks.

"The vet is running some more tests," Derek says, sidestepping her question a bit. He's unprepared for this conversation, for the way people's faces change at the word _cancer._ "He's not quite himself," Derek admits, "but he's hanging in there." Derek glances at her. "What about you?"

She shakes her head. "Don't."

"What did I do?" he asks.

When she's silent he frowns a little.

Aren't they still all … friends? Just because he hasn't been walking Doc with her, just because he's been preoccupied with his life, with his marriage, he's still aware – maybe even a _tiny_ bit embarrassed – that before that happened, Meredith was having problems with her friends.

He tilts his head, studying her for a moment. "How are you doing?" he tries again.

"Don't do that either."

"Meredith – "

"I just wanted to know how Doc is."

"And I told you. And I just wanted to know how _you_ are," he adds. "Which seems like a fair trade."

"I bet it does." She shakes her head. "Can I see him?"

"Doc?"

"Yes, Doc." She looks over her shoulder for a moment as if she's expecting someone to catch them.

Not that they're doing anything wrong.

"If he's sick, I want to see him. If he's that sick, I mean."

"What's _that sick_?" he asks.

"I want to say goodbye, Derek," she says, raising her voice slightly. "If he's that sick, if he's dying, I want to say goodbye. I should get to say goodbye."

They attract a few glances now; he takes her arm to steer her around the corner and she pulls it away from him barely two steps later. She's staring at the floor, ignoring him, but she doesn't leave.

"Meredith … Doc isn't dying," he says quietly.

Now she looks up. "How do you know that?"

"How do I … ." His voice trails off. "I just do," he says finally. "Doc isn't dying," he repeats.

"But what if he is?"

"If he is, I'll tell you. If he is, you can say goodbye, if that's what you want."

"Yeah." She looks pensive. "You're not just going to spring it on me?"

It feels unfair in the moment – Derek is the one people spring things _on_ , the one whose wife didn't tell him she was pregnant, who showed up in the middle of life in Seattle without a word of word of warning, not to mention all the other –

But Meredith's gaze reminds him she's been surprised too.

"No, I won't just spring it on you."

"Okay, then."

He pauses. "Didn't you say Doc isn't your dog anymore?"

"He's not."

"But you still want to know how he's doing?"

"Yes."

"And you still want to say goodbye, if he's – you still want to say goodbye?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Just because he's not my dog anymore doesn't mean I don't worry about him. Maybe I shouldn't, maybe I'm not supposed to, but I do."

He considers this. "Meredith – "

"So you'll tell me, if I need to see him. If I need to say goodbye."

"I'll tell you."

"Okay." Slowly, she nods. "Thank you."

"You don't have to thank me. Meredith," he says when she starts to turn away. "Are you okay?"

She smiles slightly, but it doesn't reach her eyes. "Don't worry about it," she says. "Not my dog anymore, remember?"

..

" … I can't."

"Rose, I get it." Addison leans forward in her chair, trying to communicate the importance of her message to her very pregnant patient.

Her very pregnant patient who's already a mother six times over. The one she almost agreed to risk her career for because her patient was afraid of telling her husband the truth.

 _Familiar? That's an understatement._

"Believe me, I get it," she repeats.

"How can you? You're a doctor," Rose says, her tired face bleak. "Your husband is a doctor too – right?"

Addison nods.

"I'm guessing he approves of birth control."

 _Not as much as I used to._

"He does," Addison admits. "And I know yours doesn't. And I know they're different, Rose, but what they have in common, what all marriages have in common, is that keeping secrets is a bad idea. It's dangerous."

She glances as subtly as she can up at the ceiling. If the Ward family's god is real, now seems about the time he would smite her for hypocrisy, right? Is hypocrisy even one of the seven deadly sins? She's not sure, come to think of it, but she's almost positive gluttony is, so the baseball-sized chocolate-chip muffin she and her breakfast-loving fetus ate this morning in a fit of hormonal hunger probably already doomed her anyway.

"I'm pregnant," Addison says quietly. "Eleven weeks."

"You are?" Rose glances down at her midsection. "It must be your first."

Addison nods. "And it wasn't planned."

Rose's eyes widen. "Your husband – "

"He knows," Addison says. "But he didn't know right away. I waited to tell him because I couldn't figure out how and then he found out from the wrong person in the wrong way and it was so much worse than if I'd actually been honest."

 _Do you hear yourself, Addie?_

But that's the thing. She can give the advice she can't take. Everyone can.

 _Physician, heal thyself_ , and all of that.

"You told him, though," Rose says, looking up at Addison, her hand resting on the swell of her pregnancy.

"I told him. And I'm glad I did."

 _But he doesn't know the rest, and if tubal ligation is enough to send you to confession, I really don't think you want to hear it either._

Rose just looks at her, tears in her eyes. "Chris loves babies."

"I know," Addison says quietly.

"And he loves me. I mean, I'm certain he does. I'm positive. It's just … ."

Her voice trails off.

 _It's just you don't have a guarantee he'd still be with you without the baby. That things would be the same if you weren't carrying his child._

"Rose," she says gently, "Chris loves you. Anyone can see that. He loves you, and he cares about your safety. I know he does."

Rose looks away, worrying the edge of the blanket, her body almost comically swollen with pregnancy. Her eyes are visibly anxious.

"Look … I can't tell you what to do," Addison says quietly. "But I _can_ tell you what I'm willing to do. I can talk to your husband for you. With you, without you, whatever you'd prefer. I can help him understand the toll these pregnancies have taken on your body and on your health. And I can help him understand that there's a choice between abstinence and something a lot easier for him to get behind … so to speak."

Rose actually smiles a little, her eyes teary.

"You think that's going to work?"

"I think so. I hope so." Addison looks down at her hands. "As for what I'm not willing to do … I can't perform a procedure without leaving a record, Rose. That puts both of us in danger."

"Telling my husband – "

" – doesn't put you in danger," Addison interrupts, gently. "It's uncomfortable, even painful … but it's not dangerous."

She knows this, and Karev took it upon himself to confirm it too, earlier, the smartass.

… okay, fine, he was actually doing his job, and being _somewhat_ caring of the patient, but that doesn't matter right now.

Rose, meanwhile, is quiet, her expression conflicted.

Addison waits.

"You'll talk to Chris for me?"

"I'll talk to Chris for you."

And then Addison breathes a sigh of relief as Rose slowly … but surely … nods her head.

..

"Disaster averted," Addison announces.

Derek turns the nurses' desk, where he's apparently been studying a chart. "That's an interesting greeting."

"Yeah?" She inclines her cheek for a kiss, which he grants her.

"Yeah." He scans her briefly – she knows she looks tired, not that she'd say that out loud, but they both know the first trimester exhaustion she won't disclose to their colleagues has made a strenuous job even harder. And she's wearing street clothes, her light spring jacket thrown over her arm. Finished earlier than she expected.

He tilts his head. "What kind of a disaster are we talking about?"

"You really want to know?"

He looks at her curiously. "I asked, didn't I?"

"Yeah. You asked." She studies the lines on his face, faint but familiar. "Okay. How much time do you have?"

"I have – "

And then his pager goes off.

Okay, maybe _this_ is the Wards' god getting back at her. Seems about right.

"I'm sorry." He leans in to kiss her cheek again. "You're leaving?"

She nods.

"Let me know when you get home," he calls over his shoulder and she just nods, watching him go.

She's leaving earlier than expected, he's leaving later.

 _Marriage is a give and take._

As much as she's appreciated Derek's solicitousness of late, as much as she's always needed, thrived on, basked in his attention, she needs moments of solitude too, to appreciate their opposite.

So she enjoys her solo drive home – it's relaxing rather than isolating – and then she lets herself into the trailer ready to unwind with a glass of Perrier and the soothing sound of the light rain drizzling onto the porch.

But like so many of her plans … it's thwarted.

..

Carrying Doc's heavy, limp body in both arms is no easy task, shifting him to bang on the door seems hopeless, but the vet is expecting them after her frantic call and pulls the door open before she has to figure out how to manage.

"I got home and he was listless – he hadn't eaten all day – " She's out of breath, Doc is heavier than he looks, and Dr. Dandridge is taking him out of her arms a second later.

"It's okay. Let's have a look."

Addison shoves her rain-frizzed hair behind her ears, still trying to catch her breath.

"What about you, are you all right? Do you want some water?"

The vet is looking at her curiously.

"I'm fine," she pants. "Just – take care of Doc."

A creaking sound makes her turn around, and she's surprised to see –

Meredith Grey?

It is in fact Meredith Grey, descending the staircase, her hair wet, as if …

Oh.

 _Oh._

"Is he sick again?" Grey asks, looking at Doc.

Addison nods, glancing from the vet back to Grey – no, Meredith. They're on a first-name basis now, aren't they? After everything?

"What about you?" Meredith asks.

She's standing in front of her now – she smells like shampoo and Addison is embarrassed, for a moment, at the … _dorm_ feeling of all this, like they're back in college and her roommate is arriving home with wet hair and her boyfriend's shirt, just announcing to the world that …

Well, in this case, that Meredith is apparently sleeping with her vet.

 _Better my vet than my husband._

"Addison? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. Just – "

"You carried him here?" Meredith looks at Doc, then back to Addison. "He's heavy."

"He's fine."

"He's sick," Meredith reminds her, unnecessarily.

"He's sick, but he's not heavy."

"You should sit down. You look exhausted. And your breathing … ." Meredith frowns at her, and Addison frowns back automatically. So she's ten years beyond looking fresh as a daisy right after showering off a romp with a vet, fine.

Meredith looks over her shoulder toward the exam room where the vet has disappeared with Doc.

"You're pregnant," Meredith whispers.

"Yes, I'm aware."

They look at each other silently for a moment, then Meredith pads across the floorboards – they're all bamboo and Pacific Northwest-y and _god_ , she misses New York sometimes – and returns with a bottle of water.

"Thank you," Addison mutters, because it actually does help, and she even lets Meredith convince her to sit down in the artisanal vet kitchen or whatever the hell this is.

Okay, fine, she was tired. She drinks, and she takes some deep breaths.

"Better?" Meredith asks after a few moments.

"You're … here," Addison says, aware it doesn't sound particularly intelligent.

"I'm here."

"At the vet's."

Meredith nods.

"You're dating the vet," Addison replies. _Dating_ seems so quaint a term in this instance, but … she'll put it out there.

Meredith nods again. "So … you _are_ feeling better?" she asks

"You and the vet," Addison says, ignoring Meredith's question. "No, that's good. It's – great. It's good." She considers this for a moment.

Meredith and the vet.

Wait. How does Meredith –

"He volunteers with the place where we got Doc," she says as if she read Addison's mind.

"The pound?"

"I don't think they call it that anymore. But – yeah."

So that's how Derek found the vet. She never asked.

"You told Derek," Meredith says quietly.

At first she's confused – does she mean about the vet?

But then she realizes.

She looks up, surprised, then nods. She figures she owes the other woman that much. "How did you – uh, he told you?"

She's not sure if she'd prefer a yes, or –

"No, I just … figured."

Maybe she would prefer a _yes._

Over whatever this is – that she noticed?

"Congratulations," Meredith says quietly.

Addison studies her face. Is she congratulating Addison on the pregnancy, or on finally telling her husband?

There's no hint of mockery or judgment in Meredith's expression; she looks – well, she looks tired, but it's basically required that every intern spend twelve months looking exhausted, so that's to be expected.

" ... thank you," she says after a moment.

For a moment both women are silent, and then Addison's phone rings.

 _Derek._

"Hi, did you get my – he's okay, I think, the vet's looking at him now." She holds the phone slightly away from her as Derek's concerned voice rings down the line. "I'm fine, it's a short – you don't have to come here, honey, I was about to leave. Really. Yes, I'm sure. Derek – fine, I will. Okay, see you soon."

Meredith looks uncomfortable, though Addison can't imagine why – a thirty-second phone call of marital shorthand surely can't be more personal than a virtual walk of shame down a vet's back staircase, can it?

She doesn't have much time to ponder that before the vet is emerging from the exam room, a solemn expression on his face.

..

She drives back to the trailer slowly, rain spitting on the windshield, her heart heavy.

The rain picks up as she pulls up the long unpaved drive.

A shadow emerges from the trailer.

"You're ridiculous," she says, affectionately, when Derek opens her car door, holding an umbrella. Her voice cracks a little, though, and she hopes he doesn't hear it.

"Fine, then get wet." But his tone is light and he helps her out of the car anyway; she's tired and she leans against him as he closes the car door for her.

"You could have waited for me," he says after he ushers her into the trailer ahead of him and then shakes the umbrella out on the porch.

"Doc was sick," she reminds him. "He needed the vet."

"I know that, Addie, but he's heavy." He closes the door against the rain. "You didn't carry him the whole way?"

"I drove," she says, avoiding some of the question.

He shakes his head. "You're wet." He helps her off with her jacket. "It's chilly out."

"Derek." She rests her hands on her husband's chest. "I appreciate it, I really do, but I'm pregnant, not consumptive. I live in a trailer, not a Victorian novel."

He frowns.

"I'm okay," she assures him.

He doesn't look totally convinced. "Get in the shower," he suggests.

"Come with me?"

He looks amused. "Maybe," he says.

She pouts a little, then glances at open shower. "It's a very small space," she says ruefully.

"This is what I get for taking you to a hotel. Now you're spoiled for the trailer." He turns on the water before she can protest. "And it's not that small," he adds.

She opens her mouth to tease him and then closes it at his expression.

The warm shower feels nice – sharing it, especially.

She leans against him, holding on tighter when the sadness about Doc washes over her in waves. She misses his warm furry presence already. He was so listless when she got home, so frightening not himself. Derek wraps his arms around her in turn and they stand under the warm spray long enough that he should start scolding her for wasting water. But he doesn't.

"Finn said he'd call in the morning," she reminds Derek when they're out and dried off. She's caught Derek up on Doc's treatment and, when he requested it, on her patient's as well.

" _Finn_." Derek raises an eyebrow. "You're on a first name basis now?"

"You'd prefer _Doctor Dandridge?_ " She makes a face at him. "You're the one who said vets aren't actually real – "

"Fine, Finn." Derek gestures for her to continue. "Did he say anything else?"

"I already told you the rest." Addison sighs. "But he looked … serious, when I left."

"It's serious," Derek says quietly. "But he could still improve. If his liver enzymes stabilize – "

"He'll still be sick, though."

Derek gives her a sad half-smile. "He's in good hands right now," he says. " _Finn_ is a good vet. Don't you think?"

Her lips part.

 _Meredith was there. She's sleeping with the vet._

She could say it.

She doesn't say it.

She's not sure why.

Except maybe that her stomach turns over.

Derek is at her side in a blink, supporting her, but even though she drops her to her haunches automatically and he pulls her long, damp hair into his fist, everything stays down.

"I wish I could just – " She shakes her head when she's standing and he pulls her in for a brief hug, mercifully not squeezing very hard. This on-edge, nauseating feeling is just … nauseating.

She doesn't try to talk again, not until he's brought her a cup of ginger tea – sitting in a bowl.

Her husband isn't the saucer type, not when he doesn't have a cabinet full of her wedding china.. She likes this particular ginger tea and since her life in the trailer is all teabags, no dainty little sterling infuser here, and he knows she needs somewhere to rest the teabag.

And so the bowl. Not really how tea is supposed to work, maybe, but it works for them.

And the tea works for the nausea.

And the vet is working on their dog.

And they're working on their marriage.

..

Derek lies awake in the dark that night, looking at the ceiling.

Thinking.

He's thinking alternately about Doc … and about their unborn child.

Maybe Addison was right when she called Doc their _first baby._

Because right now he's lying next to his pregnant wife, who is breathing peacefully, who is _fine_ , and he's thinking about their baby who is also fine, and he's also thinking about their dog … who is not.

"Are you awake?"

He smiles a little; he's been moving a hand over her midsection, somewhere between soothing her nausea and connecting with their baby – even though yes, he's a doctor, and he's well aware that's not exactly the same place.

"I'm awake."

"Me too," she says unnecessarily, rolling over to face him. He helps her the rest of the way and she curls into him – this is how they slept, for years, twisting and turning and always coming back to each other. Like those mechanical toys he'd see for sale on the city sidewalks, the ones who do somersaults and headstands and tumble over and under and over except they did it together.

Wordlessly, he strokes her hair.

"I'm not worried," she says. "Not about the baby."

They've been married for eleven years; he would be more surprised – more worried, even – if she just flat out said that she _was_ worried.

"Good." He continues to stroke her hair. "There's no reason to be worried."

"There's a reason." She pulls back, looking up at him. "I'm forty."

"No, you're not."

"I'm close enough. I'm _geriatric_ enough."

"Addison – "

"No, Derek, this isn't a – vanity thing or whatever. The baby is at risk because of my age."

"Addison. We don't have the lab work back yet."

"We wouldn't even _have_ lab work if it weren't for my age."

"But we do have it, and it's good to have more information earlier, isn't it?" Silently, he thanks the staff at Melissa's practice, who somehow slipped multiple pamphlets on non-invasive prenatal testing into the folder they gave him the day of Addison's blood draw. It's not that he's worried about the medicine, but he doesn't want to talk to Addison as a doctor. He wants to make her feel better, and –

"That doesn't make me feel better," she says in a small voice.

"Addie."

"What if there's something wrong?"

"Then we'll deal with it."

 _We don't deal with things._

The thought pops into his head, unbidden, along with the idea that he'd like to change that.

"Addison – "

"Would you still be like this?" she asks quietly.

"Hm?" He's confused, but he can't get a look at her expression – her head is resting on his chest, her face obscured, while their free hands sit intertwined on his midsection. He gives hers a cautious little squeeze. "Would I still be like – what do you mean?"

"Like this," she repeats, her voice small and stubborn. "If it weren't for the baby, would you still be like this … with me?"

He eases her away; this feels too important not to see her face, but she misreads his intention and grips his shirt tighter. "No, Derek, wait – "

"Addie, it's okay – "

But she seems convinced now that he's trying to push her away and is apparently stuck between holding onto his shirt and turning away herself. Finally he gives up and just pulls her back into his arms, deciding it's less important to see her face than it is to calm her down.

"Don't get worked up." He strokes her hair, holding her securely against him. "You're – "

"Don't say _you're pregnant_ ," she mutters against his shoulder – making it sound very much like she's made a quick recovery.

He strokes her hair, and he thinks about her question.

 _If it weren't for the baby, would you still be like this … with me?_

How to answer that question?

He knows as well as she does there's been a chasm between them in Seattle. Sometimes bigger, sometimes smaller, sometimes approachable and sometimes cavernous – but always there.

He'd be lying to say the baby hasn't changed things.

But –

"It's okay," she says quietly, her tone resigned.

"Don't." He rubs her back, feeling helpless. "You don't even know what I was going to say."

She wriggles in his arms, attempting to sit up, and he lets her, helping her up the rest of the way and then sitting up the face her. "Addison …"

"It's different, Derek. The baby … makes things different for us," she says softly.

He nods. "I know."

Her downcast eyes are getting to him.

"Addie."

She doesn't look up.

"Addison," he coaxes. "Listen to me."

"What?" she asks the bedclothes.

"The baby changes things," he repeats, "and it's … here, and it's real, so we can't guess what things would be like otherwise. It's not productive … it doesn't mean anything."

"Okay," she whispers.

"Addie …."

When she finally looks up there are tears in her eyes and he sighs, feeling helpless yet again. There's no good answer. He's trapped and the worst part is he knows Addison wasn't even trying to trap him this time: she's an unwilling Sphinx and he has no right answers … but neither does she.

"It doesn't matter," she says, her tone resigned once more.

" _Addie._ I'm glad the baby changes things," he says firmly, though he doesn't raise his voice above the soft night-time volume they've both been using. "Does that matter?"

She doesn't look away from him this time. Her mouth twitches slightly – as if, sometime soon, she might smile.

"It matters," she says.

* * *

 _Okay, then. A bit of a growth chapter. The Season 2 timeline is a national disaster area, but I've done my best with it, and I like seeing how pregnant Addison might end up interacting differently with her patients. Maybe even enough to change up some patient-endings. Next time: test results, and a scene I've kind of been dying to share. Thank you so much for reading - I know I've been slow lately since real life has been so busy, but I'll be back next Sunday and I hope to update at least one other WIP (TYALIU is next in the queue for sure) before then. I hope you'll review and let me know what you think!_

 _(And for those keeping track of secrets, I guess we can now add Addison knowing Meredith is "dating" Finn to the list)_


	12. Certainty

**_A/N: Happy QPQ Day! Thank you so much for your feedback on this story. I truly appreciate each and every review, and your enthusiasm keeps me on my Sunday schedule. This chapter actually surprised me a little bit - it started out as the first half of the next chapter and then I realized it needed its own (LONG) life. I'm loving taking Addison and Derek through this complicated, unexpected pregnancy journey and I'm so happy you're on board. I hope you enjoy the new chapter and I wish everyone a relaxing end to the weekend and great start to the week!_**

* * *

 ** _Certainty_**

 _Gestational Age: eleven weeks, five days **  
**Baby Is the Size of a: lime, still (hold the gin and tonic for a few more months) **  
**Baby's Mother Is: hungry and tired and afraid to be as happy as she'd like and yes she could probably use some individual therapy but who has the time?_  
 _Baby's Father Is: probably more forgiving than he should be, still annoyingly attractive, always on the lookout for undercooked meat and no that's not a euphemism_  
 _Secret Count: one down, one up_  
 _Good Thing She Can't: have as much alcohol as she'd like, because she's an awfully chatty drunk, and the secret count is … one down, one up_

..

* * *

"My mother – "

"Ooh, no." Addison makes a face, rolling away from him. "Foul ball, Derek. Automatic out."

"Don't pretend you understand baseball."

"Don't pretend you understand women," she responds coolly, "if you think that bringing up your mother is going to get you a home run or even," and now she sits up a little, making sure he has a good view of what he's missing, "… to first base." She can't help smiling at his disappointed expression. "Do I understand enough baseball now?"

"That's unfair."

"Take it up with the umpire." She pulls the covers around the … bases when he reaches for her. "I'm not in the mood anymore."

He sighs. "Addie, all I was trying to say was that we are going to tell our families at some point … right?"

It's diplomatic, his use of the word _families._ Really, Derek has a family, which Addison shares, so _they_ have a family, and Addison, on her own, well … she has a brother.

A brother, and a hell of a lot of emotional baggage.

From people who wouldn't know how to define the word _emotional_ other than perhaps as a synonym for _unseemly._

(She takes a quick moment to apologize to the life within her for half of its genes, aware it probably won't be the last time she'll feel the urge to do so.)

"Addison?"

"Yes." She relents a little when she sees his hand drifting toward the now-covered middle of her body. He can't seem to resist touching the very slight but – okay, fine, still _locatable –_ bump where their child is growing. He's tentative now and that placates her further; she links her fingers through his and guides him the rest of the way, enjoying the expression on his face when he settles his palm against the sheet-covered curve of her body. He has this way of seeming almost … surprised each time, pleased anew, that might bring a more emotional, softer sort of woman to tears.

Not Addison, of course.

Her eyes _are_ stinging a bit, but it's just the spring pollens in the air, that's all.

"Addie," he says gently, and she shakes her head.

"It's fine, Derek. Really. And yes, we'll tell them eventually. Tell _her_ eventually," since he was asking about his mother specifically, "but I want to wait."

"Until the second trimester?"

" … that too."

"Addison."

"Your mother isn't exactly crazy about me, Derek."

"She loves you."

"She _sort of_ loved me, theoretically anyway, but not after all – this." She gestures around the general vicinity of – Seattle. Or something.

It's complicated. Sure, her mother-in-law loved her … nominally, theoretically, in the loopy handwriting she used to sign birthday cards (always the same, always faded watercolor print free from the veterans' assistance group she raised money for each year). In her Carolyn Shepherd way: dutifully, with obligation covered up in a cheerful gingham apron. But that was before Addison broke her son's heart (also nominally, theoretically, if you ask her … at least if you asked her a few months ago).

"Addie."

"She may have loved me," Addison allows, "but she never liked me."

"That's not true."

"Derek, she told Nancy she was waiting for you to find the right girl."

"Every mother says that when her son is – "

"We were already married."

He sighs. "Nancy shouldn't have told you that."

She widens her eyes. "Yeah, _Nancy_ is the one who shouldn't have done something there."

"Look, Addie, whatever my mother did or didn't say – "

"Did. Did say."

"Did, fine, but my point is – you know her, nothing warms her up like a new baby."

She can't deny that.

But as much as _Derek_ may deny it – her mother-in-law isn't going to be crazy about their reconciliation, because she's never been crazy about Addison. Why?

Oh, let her count the ways …

 _One._ She's rich and privileged. As a reason not to like her … it feels spectacularly unfair. It's her parents who are wealthy, anyway – it's not like she's touched her Bradford trust. And while the provenance of said wealth is sketchy at best, it's not like Carolyn Shepherd is the one who should be objecting to it – the actual labor behind the sugar money that shaped the Bradford fortune, now _they_ have a good argument. But as far as she knows, that's not Carolyn's problem. She objects to money on principle, and it's not like her reverse-snobbery actually accomplishes anything. And as for privileged? Well, she's not going to deny that her family's wealth has afforded her certain privileges: a top-notch education, fully paid for, comfortable house, travel, tutelage in all sorts of things that would make her mother-in-law roll her eyes … fine. There were strings attached to every check, _Montgomery_ strings, look-the-other-way strings, and that comfortable house was only comfortable physically. She doesn't like to think too much about what it was like to grow up in her parents' house, but she certainly wouldn't call it a privilege.

 _Two._ She's too thin. This one also seems unfair; while her mother-in-law has a certain amount of post-middle-aged heft at this point – the woman did bear five children, as she'll tell anyone who'll listen – Addison has seen plenty of pictures in her prime and Carolyn started out as whippet-thin as any one of her daughters. Not to mention that Addison has shopped with Nancy enough times to be well aware that her sister-in-law is thinner than she is, and Carolyn likes _her._ So it's clearly less about her BMI and more about what Carolyn Shepherd seems to see as the traitorous root of said BMI, which can probably track to number _one_ and lead right to the third as well … .

 _Three._ She doesn't eat enough. This, as anyone who's seen her put away a drunk cheeseburger can attest, is clearly untrue. It _is_ true that she's not always at her best in that bottomless-pit way at her mother-in-law's house, but that's less because she doesn't eat enough and more that she likes to save her calories for things that are worth it. Like wine. A good rare steak. That perfect swirl of cream in a really well-made macchiato and now she's just tormenting her pregnant self. The point is, Carolyn's standard Cream of Carb Casserole fare doesn't exactly make the cut. Which brings us to:

 _Four._ She's a snob. (Are all of these starting to seem related? Bring it up with her mother-in-law.) Totally unfair and untrue. Just because she'd rather drink good wine than cans of … whatever light beer swill her brothers-in-law bring to Lizzie's annual Superbowl party, or do just about anything rather than _go_ to Lizzie's annual Superbowl party … just because she politely passed on wearing her mother-in-law's uncomfortably shiny wedding dress in lieu of something that actually looked decent on her and didn't have visible seams … because she'd rather live in a brownstone where they actually have room to breathe than a claustrophobic railroad apartment her in-laws lived in when they first married … because her coffee comes in beans rather than a tin can, because her shoes cost – okay, her mother-in-law might get this one. Point Four goes to Carolyn.

 _Five._ She won't give Derek children. As if her husband is capable of asexual reproduction and Addison has been blocking him from having a baby all these years. If she's honest, she regrets plenty about the way they talked about this topic, let it come between them with conversations that turned into conflict. She said things she didn't mean and she's certain Derek did too but her mother-in-law has forty-seven other grandchildren, roughly speaking, and resenting Addison for not carrying Derek's child as soon as she would have liked – also feels unfair. But Carolyn never missed an opportunity to remind Addison how seamlessly her own daughters blended motherhood and medicine.

 _Six._ She's wrong for Derek. Okay, of all the reasons her mother-in-law has for disliking her, this one is the most ridiculous of all. She's rich and nominally privileged, fine. Too thin? Those were the days … but sure, okay. Doesn't eat enough – a snob – even her supposed refusal to give Derek children, they're all rooted in _some_ grain of truth, but wrong for Derek? Addison? Even in the darkest moments of that last year in New York, when she felt half the time that she was the only one in their brownstone, the only one in the marriage, when she was lonely and desperate enough to make a decision that would throw all their lives into chaos … even then, she never once doubted their rightness for each other. They'd stopped making effort, they got busy and lazy, sure, but wrong for each other? Addison and Derek? Never. She may not know much, especially these days, but she knows that much with a hundred percent certainty.

"Addie."

"Second trimester," she assures him, "just let's get through the first trimester and then we can … figure out when to tell people."

He's too smart not to notice the double hedging, but he nods in conciliatory fashion, and she's grateful enough to let the sheet drop … just a little.

His eyes widen. "Am I still at bat?"

"You didn't think I'd leave you in the dugout forever, did you?"

"Honestly?" his expression turns thoughtful, she reaches for him with mock outrage and the sheet slips down the rest of the way as she decides it's time to put the extended baseball metaphor to bed.

(But not before what she can only describe as a well-executed double-hitter … and the _very_ well-received home run that follows.)

..

Derek doesn't have any problems.

Right now, he doesn't have a single problem. Not one.

He's cruising on a lightly-populated road in the jeep that feels like a flexible extension of his body, and his actual body is feeling quite a few less than it's close-to-forty years after his favorite type of morning cardio. His wife smiles lazily at him when he glances over; she's quiet in that _one way to shut her up_ fashion they used to joke about. She woke up feeling good, that's what she told him when she first pounced, and he wasn't one to pass up the golden opportunity. The exhaustion will come later, the nausea that thankfully is already starting to get slightly better, but this morning's reconnection has filled him with energy. Addison used to tease him about this, claiming he had only two speeds: practically passing out after, or revved up for brain surgery.

Clearly, this morning is the latter.

"You don't seem very tired," she observes when they're pulling into the hospital's parking lot.

"I'm not." He grins at her as he pulls the emergency brake, leftover habit from years of bumper hockey on Manhattan streets. "Why would I be?"

"That's right, you're not pregnant."

She can't seem to sound very annoyed with him though, even if she's trying.

"And anyway, I know what you were doing this morning," she says.

"It wasn't exactly a secret," he reminds her.

"I _mean_ , you were trying to distract me from the NIPT results, Derek."

"As I recall, you were the one who seduced me." He opens the door and watches, amused, as she waits with typically regal bearing for him to walk around and open her side of the car … which he does.

"I did not _seduce_ you," she hisses – without much malice, to be fair – ignoring his proffered hand and gliding gracefully out of the jeep on her own instead.

 _Gliding._ Out of a jeep. Only his wife.

Where was he?

Problems. That thing he has none of, not right now, as he watches Addison stride slightly in front of him up the walkway toward the hospital, noting with some appreciation that pregnancy has really only enhanced, if anything, the –

" _Derek._ "

"What?"

"Stop looking at me," she says, though she sounds pleased; it's fine, he's had more than fifteen years of practice decoding tone over words. Words are just the beginning for the two of them. Foreplay, if you will. It's tone that –

"You're still looking."

"You're still complaining."

She lifts an eyebrow, then looks down at the blackberry in her hand. "If Melissa calls …"

" … call me," he finishes, "but she's not supposed to have the results until the day after tomorrow, isn't that what she said?"

"It's what she said."

Addison doesn't say anything else, but her expression is suggesting the OB may have tagged her as the kind of anxious patient who has to be set up with post-dates to avoid … well, to avoid flip-outs. Still, Melissa struck him as a straight shooter, and it's not a practice he's ever really condoned. So he'd be surprised.

And he's aware that the results are important, but also aware that they bring with them little to no certainty. It's a screen, the earliest they can do, for certain chromosomal defects – the kind, as Addison toofrequently indicates with her self-deprecating references to her geriatric status – that can be associated with maternal age.

But they don't have time to discuss it further. The doors open and the hospital swallows them up, as it has every day of their shared professional lives – there's no time to dwell or dissect when patients need them, and there are a heartbreaking number, it seems, who need them today.

The last thing he sees is Addison's bright hair swinging with the speed of her stride as she makes haste toward a patient.

He has a feeling they won't be seeing much of each other today.

..

The benefit of a hectic day – even a heartbreaking one – is that there's no time to dwell on her own problems. Not the anxiety of the impending test results or the lingering guilt and fear in the back of her mind when she lets herself spin out an uncertain future. She's halfway up the stairs when she hears his familiar footfalls behind her.

"Hey, you got a minute?" he asks as she turns around.

"What's wrong?" she asks immediately, then realizes she sounds borderline insane. "What's up?" she corrects herself a moment later, though that's not much better and Derek's curious expression reflects that.

They're both silent for a moment while a group of residents bustles past them. And then Derek touches her elbow and they both start walking again.

"My patient," he says, "Kendra Thomas."

"What about her?"

He looks reluctant to go on, though; they pause on the next floor landing and she braces herself. If he's reluctant, then it must mean –

"Derek, can you just tell me?"

"She's brain dead," he admits. "Her parents want to keep her alive to have the baby."

They both wince at _baby_ , and she wonders if Derek is getting a taste for how Getting Stalked By Pregnant Women at Work – on a daily basis for her, hourly really – actually feels.

"You want me to talk to the parents?"

Derek looks uncomfortable. "Well, I tried already, but I figured, you know, you're neonatal, you might have a better shot at it than I do."

"Okay." She can't quite meet his eye. Derek cares deeply for his patients; this much is obvious to anyone who knows him professionally or personally. She's always respected and even loved that about him – of course he would want his patients' parents to have the fullest of pictures, even if it means asking his own pregnant wife to go stand vigil over a brain-dead pregnant woman's body, and –

"Addison." He looks concerned now. "I can ask someone else. Sansom, or – "

"It's fine, Derek."

"I wouldn't ask, it's just that – "

"I said I'd do it," she interrupts again before he can finish, lifting a hand that's half warning and half surrender.

 _Who doesn't want to take a break from worrying about her own geriatric pregnancy to stand a foot from a brain-dead pregnancy? What could possibly be stressful about that?_

She has to be a little annoyed with Derek because it's that or cry; their as-yet-ungendered child hasn't cut her much slack in the emotions department so she needs all the help she can get.

In the patient's room, which smells of bleach and some kind of stale perfume and sheer, overwhelming sadness, she faces three parents: the middle-aged couple, red-eyed and grieving, standing over their daughter's bed – and the daughter herself, also a parent to the growing baby inside her.

She can hear the hollowness of her own words, but she has to try.

"From a medical standpoint," she tells them gently once she's expressed her condolences, "this is a very bad idea."

"Well, if we wanted your opinion, miss, we'd ask for it," Kendra's father snaps.

"Mr. Thomas," Derek cuts in, but Addison waves him off.

"I understand," she says, looking from one of Kendra's parents to the other. "I understand you want to do everything you can to keep your daughter close to you."

"She wants the baby," Kendra's mother bleats, her voice trembling. "Kendra wanted this baby."

"I know that too." Addison feels tears in her own eyes and wills them to stay put. "But this – what you want to do – it's potentially dangerous and it's not – "

"But it's not impossible?" Kendra's father demands; he's all angry-sad bluster where his wife is grieving more softly; she sees Derek take half a step forward.

"It's not impossible, but you have to understand how much work a pregnant woman does to help her baby develop," Addison tells him quietly, lowering her voice as much as he raised his. "Regulating body temperature, hormone output – these things are very important to a growing baby and right now your daughter's brain isn't capable of those things."

"They keep organ donors alive after they're … gone," Kendra's mother says, her voice wavering.

Addison exchanges a glance with Derek, whose expression is grim.

"They do," Addison says, "but not for six months. Kendra's pregnancy is only sixteen weeks along," she reminds the parents, as Derek informed her on the walk to the room.

"She's known for ten of those weeks," the mother says. "My daughter called me to tell me she was pregnant and she started crying before she got the words out – that's how excited she was – and she called me every week after that. Every time the baby changed, everything about how big she was getting – it's a girl, Kendra just knew it would be a girl, she called me to tell me when her … her little fingernails were growing, and her ears, and … "

She's overcome, and Addison watches with tears in her own eyes as Kendra's parents embrace, speaking too quietly to each other for her to hear.

When they draw apart, Kendra's mother takes a deep breath. Her voice is somehow steadier than it was before. "When I was pregnant with Kendra," she says, "if something happened to my … brain … all I would have wanted was a chance for my baby. A chance for her to live. I know what Dr. Shepherd wants – " she looks at Derek, sadly, "and I know he's a good doctor, but he's not a mother. Kendra would want her baby to have every chance. And I want Kendra to have every chance. I'm her mother," she whispers. "I'm her _mother_ ," and then she's silent.

Addison swallows hard; the room is so silent now she's fairly certain it's audible.

"The science is … developing," Addison says quietly, feeling the air shift as Derek senses where she's going. "It hasn't been done. Not for this long. I understand why you want to try. Truly, I do, and I'm not going to pressure you to let her go, but I do need to make sure you understand that her injuries are – catastrophic. We don't use those words lightly. And we can't predict what will happen with – "

"The _pregnancy_ ," Kendra's father interrupts bitterly.

" … with your grandchild," Addison corrects him.

"But you'll try?" Kendra's mother asks, starting to cry openly now.

"Addison," Derek mutters next to her.

"We'll try," Addison says.

"Thank you." Weeping, Kendra's mother reaches for Addison's hands. "Thank you so much."

"I'm so sorry," Derek interrupts quietly. "Will you excuse us?"

Before she can really react, his arm is around her, propelling her out of the room.

"Derek, you _asked_ me to talk to them, do you mind?" she asks, annoyed; he's shifted to hold her arm by the time they reach the hallway and she pulls it out of his grip.

"Yes, I do mind," he responds, sounding every bit as annoyed. "She is my patient, Addison. I asked you to talk to her parents about letting her go, not – indulge them in some – science fiction fantasy."

"Science fiction fantasy." Addison's eyes widen. "That's what you think this is? That's the responsibility you think I take to my patients?"

"She's _my_ patient."

"And you asked me to talk to her, parents Derek. That means you wanted my medical judgment. If you wanted a mouthpiece, you should have brought a puppet instead!"

"I wanted your medical judgment," he says, his expression reckless, but he barrels forward and she finds herself gearing up for a fight, " _your_ medical judgment, Addison the neonatal surgeon, not Addison the … ."

He pauses, apparently with some effort.

"Please, don't stop there," Addison says acidly. "Tell me how my carrying your child," and she lowers her voice to a near-whisper for that part, "makes me suddenly unable to practice medicine. Seems like all those gender diversity at work panels they made it sit through didn't make much of an impression on you."

"It's not the baby's fault," he mutters.

"Of course not. It's my fault. Everything is my fault."

"Oh, come down from the cross already." He's glaring at her. "Don't use the baby to excuse your planting some idea in my patients' – "

"The idea was already in their head!"

At her raised voice, they both glance automatically around them. They've migrated to the catwalk but they're not loud enough to attract attention below. He lowers his voice anyway, his tone fierce.

"I _know_ the idea was in their head," he hisses, "which is precisely _why_ I asked you to talk to them."

"And talking to them is _precisely_ what I did," she snaps in return.

"No. You didn't." He has that clipped tone that she hates, that never bodes well. "I asked you to talk them _out_ of it, Addison. I didn't realize you'd be too – _sensitive_ to give them good advice."

"Too sensitive _._ " Her eyes widen more, if possible, heart pounding. "Actually, you didn't specifically ask me to talk them out of it, but even if you had – I don't do your bidding, Derek, not here and not medically. You'd have to go back to your _intern_ for that."

She stops talking, breathing heavily; there's a look on his face she doesn't particularly like, and yet she's flooded with something beyond adrenaline, beyond anger.

It's almost … relief.

 _I knew you'd hate me again if I gave you the chance._

"We're not talking about this here," Derek says before she can say anything else. "We can talk about this at home. After I undo the damage you did with my patient's family."

"The damage _I_ did?" She follows him as he starts to walk away, grabbing the sleeve of his lab coat when he doesn't turn around. "Are you serious?"

He opens his mouth – presumably to snap at her, it's not like she hasn't been fighting with the man for pretty much her entire adult life – but a sudden wave of nausea overcomes her and whatever he says, if he says anything at all, is lost.

"Addison. _Addison._ "

She's not being manipulative, though she supposes it's possible the baby is – babies don't like when their parents fight, isn't that a thing?

They're not fighting now, though. Derek's arm is around her – like before, warm and strong and it feels like the only thing holding her up. She closes her eyes, she has to, and when she opens them they're in an empty exam room and she's staring down a pink kidney-shaped basin like a patient.

"I'm okay," she says, though it sounds a little muffled to her own ears. She's sitting down – when did she sit down? – Derek crouched down next to her, holding back her long hair with one hand and the basin with the other. When she doesn't move he fishes a hair band out of her lab coat pocket – okay, he might know her a little too well – and does a decently clumsy job of securing her hair away from her face. Which is nice because it frees up his hand to rub her back as the child that's half her and half him expresses its disregard for their argument by sending everything she's eaten that day back up.

Derek handles it swiftly and neatly, for which she's grateful, and while vomiting is hardly pleasant it does relieve some of the nausea and most of the throbbing headache. There's nowhere in the room to sit together; Derek ends up helping her onto the exam table and then hoisting himself up beside her, taking her weight against him. She's utterly drained. She forgets their fight, forgets everything except the comfortingly familiar smell and feel of him.

"I guess the afternoon morning sickness is still a thing," she says when she can manage to talk again, drawing away from him slowly and giving him a self-deprecating sort of smile.

"I guess so." He touches the side of her face. "Are you okay?"

"I'm okay." She winces. "Sorry I threw up on you."

"You didn't throw up on me," he assures her. "You're nothing if not precise. But I'm, uh, I'm sorry I made you … throw up at all."

"That wasn't you. That was your baby."

She says it like a test, heart pounding, _do you still hate me because I can find some more petals_ , but sure enough his face softens.

"Then I apologize on behalf of my baby," he says, smiling.

She finds herself smiling too. She opens her mouth to say – _something_ – about his patient, about their argument, but she can't bring herself to. She just nods weakly, and Derek springs down from the table and lifts her down over her half-hearted protest that she's too heavy.

"Not yet," he says, smiling at her again.

They bicker good-naturedly at the door about how she feels (better), whether she should get back to work now (of course), if ginger ale would help (maybe), whether she can leave soon (probably not).

He pauses in the open doorway like he has something else to say – his lips part, even – but they separate to get back to work before she finds out what it was.

..

He's kicking himself all the way to his next patient.

They've been getting along well, shamelessly well, egregiously well, and he shouldn't have lost his patience with her.

He shouldn't have suggested that motherhood compromised her medical judgment.

He knows this; in his half-hearted defense, she wasn't in his position in the room – she didn't see what her own face looked like when Kendra's mother pleaded with her. He could see every emotion flicking in her ever-expressive eyes.

The thing is, Addison has always grown attached to patients, getting emotionally involved even when it only serves to cause her pain. It's something he's known about her for as long as he's known her to _have_ patients, and while it sometimes frustrates and even frightens him, he'd be lying if he said a part of him didn't admire her for it. Didn't love her for it. Watching her heart break over patients always broke his heart too; that was before, though. That was in New York, when they were _AddisonAndDerek_ and their hearts beat as one so of course they broke in tandem too.

Now?

Now is anyone's guess.

 _Now_ is uncertain, shockingly so, _now_ is impending parenthood, a new life, so when his phone rings with another unexpected message he shouldn't even be surprised.

..

"Tell me the plan," Addison says, both hands wrapped around the cup of hot chocolate he brought her. He had a pang of wondering if the sugar would nauseate her, but she seemed pleased with the gesture.

"The plan is for Dr. Dandridge to operate," Derek says. "He can do a partial removal of the mass – that's what he said – and if successful, it can buy Doc some time."

" _Dr._ Dandridge," Addison repeats. "Now he's a doctor?"

"If he's going to operate on our dog, he's a doctor."

Addison nods. "He's going to operate on our dog." She pauses. "He _is_ going to operate on our dog, right?"

"As long as we tell him to."

"We should tell him to." She frees a hand to touch his face – it's warm from holding the paper cup of hot chocolate. "Doc needs more time, Derek. Let's buy him some time."

He's not sure if it's Doc or Addison who needs more time, but he's not going to split hairs now. He just nods and picks up his phone to call the vet and tell him to go ahead.

..

 _Doc needs more time._

Doc's not the only one, and she knows she was probably a bit too transparent earlier. Admittedly, she's not ready to let go of their dog.

Admittedly … she's not ready for a lot of things.

She's not ready to get home, exhausted, finally take off her shoes, and then get a frantic call from Adele asking her to come back to the hospital – but not to say anything to Richard – not ready for Derek's protests or for his insistence that he accompany her.

She should protest in return, remind him that she's not even twelve weeks pregnant and perfectly capable of a solo drive, but she's tired enough that she just lets him – tired enough to doze off in the car on the way in.

Derek leaves her alone to deal with Adele and then she finds out what all the secrecy was about.

..

"There's nothing I can do," she admits to Derek as they drive back down moonlit roads. He glances at her when he slows down to yield; he can make out enough of her face to see both her exhaustion and her sadness.

Coupled with a healthy amount of guilt.

"It's not your fault," he reminds her. She's told him enough about Adele's niece for him to understand the fraught situation.

"But she's so young." Addison sounds like she's fighting back tears and he's not surprised when he sees, in his peripheral vision, that she's massaging her forehead before she turns to stare out the passenger-side window.

She doesn't say anything else and the next time he glances at her, she's dozed off.

Addison is still sleeping when he pulls up the unpaved drive and parks in front of the trailer.

He almost hates to wake her – but his indecision is enough to do the trick, along with his cracked door that illuminates the car; she shifts in half-sleep and her eyes flutter open.

"Derek?"

"Good morning," he teases her gently. He moves some strands of hair away from her face.

"Is it morning?" She groans a little as she lifts her head. "Or just the end of the world's longest day?"

It's a fair characterization. He's used to Addison pushing forcefully through her exhaustion and she's still performing heroically these days if you ask him. There's no need to rub it in; he gives her a sympathetic look and makes his best attempt not to hover as she rubs a weary hand over her face and actually leans into him while he unlocks the door.

Along with sympathy is a pang of guilt, of course – the tension in his patient's room and their catwalk argument afterwards can't have made the day feel any shorter.

Inside the trailer, she sinks onto the bed and removes her shoes with an audible sigh of relief, peeling off her stockings, and then looks at him with some measure of surprise when he sits down next to her and lifts her bare feet into his lap.

"You don't have to," she says.

"I know." He digs his thumbs into her insteps anyway, in the way he knows she likes, and is rewarded with a virtual purr of contentment.

"I'm not going to be able to stay awake if you keep doing that," she confesses.

"Do you need to?"

She gestures half-heartedly at her body – she's still dressed for work, and he knows the stiff fabrics can't be particularly comfortable even if she's talked him out of worrying they – what was it he said when she laughed at him? _Compress the baby._

They settle on something that's half compromise and half sleepwalk where she ends up stretched out on the bed in one of his old baseball shirts and a pair of her panties, sleepily directing him to hang her clothing _just so_ to keep it from wrinkling. He does it obediently, working off the guilt from earlier, even when she hits dog-whistle decibels of indignance when he has the nerve to try to fold her blouse on its seams. You'd think he'd set the thing alight or doused it in fish guts.

When he's performed both sufficient fashion-related penance and his own bedtime ablutions, he joins her – vaulting carefully over her supine body, leaving her with the side of the bed closer to the rest of the trailer. She curls toward him, heavy-lidded eyes sleepily appreciative.

"About that foot rub," she says, her tone innocent.

"Tell you what," he suggests, pulling her into his arms. "You stay awake for the next two minutes, and I'll rub anything you want."

She laughs a little, vibrating against him as he slides a hand down to cup the very _very_ slight – but still present – curve of her belly.

"I can't tell if that's a threat or a promise," she admits.

"Can't it be both?"

"Yeah." She tilts her head up to smile at him. "It can be both."

With what seems like the last vestiges of her consciousness, she presses a kiss to his neck and then settles back against him, soon breathing deeply enough that she's obviously asleep.

He stays awake longer – he's tired too, but his mind is revisiting the day, needling him for his mistakes, and he finds himself soothing her even though her peaceful sleep doesn't necessarily call for it: rubbing her back gently through the fabric of his old baseball t-shirt, carefully brushing her long hair away from her face.

She shifts a little against him and he moves to settle her, letting his hand wander along her arm while his mind wanders too, his gaze on the ceiling. There's a blank spot on the bed where Doc should be – he hasn't lived with them long, but it's been long enough to make an impression, and he misses his friendly warm weight.

Their baby, too, hasn't been with them long. Not long at all, in the grand scheme of things, but he already can't imagine anything else. Anything different. The mere thought of it is enough to catch his breath – there's a part of him that wants Addison to tell his mother, tell their families, tell Richard, just be _open_ about it – the part of him that thinks it will be even truer when more people know.

Because he wants it to be true. He needs it to be true.

A man who has struggled with indecision, who has questioned his feelings and hesitated to characterize them, who has said _I don't know_ more times than he'd like to admit … this much, he knows.

He knows he wants this baby.

And he knows, as his hand drifts down almost of its own accord to cup gently against the slightly curved flesh where that baby is growing – and Addison shifts almost imperceptibly closer to him sleep – that she wants it too.

It's the most agreement he's felt with his wife in too long, the most shared certainty and the truest teamwork they've had.

The two of them.

Or now, as he finally feels himself drifting toward sleep … now, the three of them.

..

He wakes to a slight pressure against him, blinking in the weak dawn light.

"I'll take him out," he murmurs, eyes still half closed, reaching blindly for Addison. "You go back to sleep."

"I'm awake," she says, sounding amused.

… and Doc isn't here.

Addison is sitting up, smiling down at him, looking far more rested than the previous day. "I kind of woke up to walk Doc too," she admits ruefully. "I thought I heard him, and then … ." Her voice trails off.

"He's okay," Derek says.

"He's okay," Addison repeats. "Well." She looks down at the bedcovers. "He will be, once Finn operates."

"You still want him to operate, don't you?"

Addison looks troubled.

"Addie?"

She touches his hand instead of responding. "As long as we're both up," she says in a tentative tone, and there's something in her eyes that keeps him from responding suggestively.

" … you want to talk a walk," he guesses, her half-embarrassed smile confirming he's correct.

"I miss Doc," she says.

"I do too." He kisses her cheek. "But if you promise not to chase too many squirrels, I'll take you on his finest walk."

"I'm not promising anything," she says, laughing a little. She strips his oversized baseball shirt over her head once she stands up, giving him an excellent view of her long bare legs as she walks toward the kitchen.

 _Why am I not surprised,_ but he doesn't say it out loud.

Not when the view is so nice, and the mood potentially precarious.

..

The view is still nice outside, if a bit different.

It's a cool spring morning with pale sunlight sneaking its way between wispy rainclouds. The air is moist and fragrant, green and fresh.

He loves it here.

"Doc loves it here," Addison says quietly, as he starts slightly at her phrasing as if she's read his mind. It wouldn't be the first time he considered whether his wife actually had that ability – or just knew him almost frighteningly well sometimes.

"Doc does love it here," Derek confirms. He gazes around the expanse of woodsy, unspoiled land. "What's not to love?"

"For a dog, you mean," Addison says, her tone light. "Nothing. It's a dog's life, really."

They've paused in a clearing and he nudges her gently with his shoulder. "Are you saying there's nothing here for a human to appreciate?"

"Do you really want me to answer that question?"

"Yes," he says, surprising himself a bit. He's challenging her, but then he saw her close her eyes briefly a few paces ago, draw a long deep inhale of clean air, and while his wife might be passive-aggressive to an almost impressive fault, occasionally manipulative … he's never thought of her as a liar.

"Fine." She tosses her hair like she's doing him a grand favor. "It's fine," she says.

When he doesn't break eye contact she sighs.

" _Fine_ ," she says for a third time. "It's … pretty."

"Pretty," he repeats, amused.

"Yes, pretty. It's – kind of nice. It's very, very green, Derek, what do you want me to say here? I don't know how to praise the woods. It's very _woodsy._ "

"Very woodsy. There you go. The highest possible praise for the woods."

She makes a face at him.

"The lake is … all right," she says after a few moments of silence, her tone reluctant.

"You should write brochures."

"And you should ask someone who likes the woods," she retorts.

Their banter is still mostly friendly but he's transported back, for a moment, to the catwalk.

 _You'd have to go back to your intern for that._

She doesn't know – not that there's anything _to_ know, he assures himself, but Meredith's relationship to these woods is different from Addison's. To say the least. Addison knows they were involved during her absence, so she probably doesn't mean anything other than –

"It's pretty," she says, interrupting his thoughts. "And it's empty."

She surprises him a bit by tucking her hand through his arm, starting up the walk again. They stroll in silence for a while before she glances up at him.

"As long as Doc still loves this land," she says quietly, "then I think he should keep fighting."

Slowly, Derek nods.

"Finn would tell us," Addison says, "if he thought that he couldn't – if he thought treatment was … the wrong decision. Wouldn't he?"

"He said it was our decision."

 _He also said it was a difficult decision._

"If the procedure gives him more time, and if he enjoys that time," Addison says, "then I think it's worth it."

"I think so too," he says.

She's quiet for long moments of gently moving air and crackling twigs underneath their feet.

"Derek?"

"Yes?"

"What were you going to do?"

"With what?" he asks.

"The land." She pauses again, gesturing to the whole green expanse of it. "You bought this land," she prompts, and he nods. "What were you going to do with it?"

"I … put the trailer on it," he says.

"I know you put the trailer on it." She winces a little as if just the reminder that they live in a trailer is enough to offend her. "But when you bought the land, were you just – that's all you planned? A trailer?"

"I don't know."

"How can you now know?"

"Addison." He shakes his head, his stomach sinking as he gets the sense where this conversation might be going.

"No, Derek, I'm just curious. We were still married, we _are_ still married, so your land is my land too."

"Thank you, Woody Guthrie."

She looks like she's fighting a smile, and then her expression turns pensive again. "You didn't tell me when you bought the land," she says quietly.

"We weren't exactly on speaking terms at the time."

She flinches, which he supposes was his intent but makes him feel a bit churlish nonetheless.

"Were you going to build a house?"

"I don't _know_."

"Were you ever going to tell me you bought the land?"

He sighs. "What do you want from me, Addison?"

Her eyes widen. "How much time do you have?"

"For you to complain about my failings? All the time in the world." He grits his teeth. Why did a walk in the woods with an avowed woods-hater who also happens to be dangerously, hormonally moody seem in _any_ respect like a good way to spend the morning?

Addison looks hurt now, and he just sighs again, fighting conflicting feelings of annoyance and guilt. He doesn't want to remember how he felt when he bought the land.

How did he feel? He remembers that he was … breathless, like he'd had the wind knocked out of him. Like the two people closest to him in the world had blown a hole through his life. Just gathering enough air to feed his organs was a chore. Inhaling _and_ exhaling, too? That was a lot. Inhaling, exhaling, and figuring out what the hell to do with his land? That … was Herculean.

And he remembers a deep, thick uncertainty, heavy enough to drag him below every time he thought he was surfacing.

"I don't know," he says honestly; she rolls her eyes and starts to turn away but he reaches out to stop her.

"Don't do that," he says quietly, turning her back to face him. "You asked me a question; I answered it."

" _I don't know_ isn't an answer, Derek."

"Is that what you think?" He lifts his eyebrows. "Okay, you really want to know what was going through my head when I bought this land?"

She nods warily.

"I. Don't. Know." He says each word louder this time, and more distinctly.

"Derek – "

"Addison, I don't know!" He raises his voice now. "You still don't get it? _I don't know_ is exactly how I felt. I had no idea. I had no idea what I was going to do with the land. I had no idea where I was going to live or how I was going to figure it out. I had no idea about _anything_. Not a damned thing."

There are tears in her eyes when he pauses for breath.

"I'm sorry," she says quietly.

"Yeah." He exhales, deflated. "Me too."

He's concentrating on slowing down his breathing, inhaling the clean green scent of the land that some part of him must have hoped would calm the explosion that was his life the day he signed the deed.

"Derek?"

He looks at her.

"I _am_ sorry." She takes his hand; hers feels chilled and he covers it with his other hand instinctively, rubbing slightly to warm it up. "You were … _I don't know_ … because of me, and I really am sorry. I'm so – I wish I could take it back. I really do."

Her expression is nothing short of miserable.

"I know." He studies her sad face, her slightly hunched posture. He doesn't want to be this couple. They're _not_ this couple, not anymore. "If you took it back, though," he says quietly, seeing her expression turn wary as he does, "then we wouldn't be here now."

His gaze moves automatically down her body, stopping where she shelters what they wouldn't have now if she really could take it all back. All the hurt they caused each other, the pain, the crushing silence and final blow, the _I don't know_ , the barbs they threw when she landed in Seattle.

They wouldn't be here if they did that. Somewhere, perhaps, but not here. That much is certain.

"Derek?"

He looks up at her. Her face is open now in the gradually brightening light – without makeup, she looks softer to him, younger despite what cosmetics commercials might have you think.

"You're right," she says quietly, her tone so serious that he can't help but start to tease her about finally saying those words – about something they agree on, about the team, about their baby.

But then her mobile rings and he falls silent, letting her answer it.

"Addison Shepherd," she says into the phone, glancing briefly at him as she speaks. "Yes. … yes. I understand. … no, I don't. … All right, thank you for calling."

"Addie?" he prompts once she's hung up, when she's silent and staring.

"That was Melissa's office." She turns huge anxious eyes to his and he feels his heart speed up. "She has the test results."

* * *

 _To be continued. Okay first, my writing time has been cut into by work (rude, I know). So this is all she wrote this week, but we'll see about next. As for this story? Well, there's a lot going on in alterna-end of-season 2-land. As many of you noticed last week, I am enjoying re-envisioning certain canon events from the lens of a pregnant Addison and an actually-working-on-it Addek. The dialogue you recognized from Kendra Thomas's room is from the show. Next chapter we'll have actual test results (don't freak out, I would not harm our baby, but Addek have to walk the road like all expectant parents) as well as that scene I promised. But that's next week, and this was this week. And I really hope you enjoyed the chapter, and I'm so grateful to you for reading and responding. I hope you'll review and let me know what you think. See you next Sunday!_


	13. Hook, Line, and Sinker

_**A/N: Just in the nick of time - almost? Things are a little crazy right now, but QPQ Sunday is a tradition for a reason. Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading and reviewing. You rock. I will be back to post more frequently soon, but in the meantime I hope you enjoy this chapter!**_

* * *

 ** _Hook, Line, and Sinker  
_**

 ** _.._**

 _Gestational Age: twelve weeks exactly  
_ _Baby is the Size of a: plum  
_ _Seattle Real Estate is: overrated but, fine, somewhat attractive  
_ _Test Results Are: so much harder to wait for as a patient than as a doctor  
_ _Fish Should: stay in the lake and out of the trailer  
_ _Dogs Should: live at least as long as humans  
_ _Married People Should: stay married (forever)  
_ _The Truth Should: stay buried (for now)_

* * *

"You're _sure_ you can take off this afternoon?"

"I'm sure," Derek says patiently, for the third time since they arrived at the hospital. He pauses, studying his wife's expression. "Melissa said the results were fine, Addie," he reminds her ... as he has multiple times since the obstetrician's call interrupted their canine-free dog walk this morning.

"No. Melissa said not to worry, which is different," Addison says, searching his face anxiously now. "Which means something. What does it mean?"

"I think it means not to worry."

She ignores him. "Why even say that?"

"Maybe because you seemed worried?"

" _Derek._ "

" _Addison_." He takes her face in his hands. He's smiling, even though she looks irritated with that fact, but he can't help it. Good news from Melissa, a clear sign that Melissa was a good choice as their (yes, _their_ ) obstetrician, and the kind of knowledge you get after eleven years of marriage that one grumpy expression forebodes disaster and another an affectionate sort of annoyance. "Don't worry," he says simply.

She looks like he's asked her to defy gravity. "Easy for you to say," she scowls.

"It was easy for me to say," he admits. "I wish it were easier for you to do."

There's a knock at the door and they move apart automatically as if they've been doing something illicit – though he supposes in this new stage of their lives, talking face to face about their still-mostly-secret unborn child _is_ rather illicit, even if they're a bit more mature than the couple who used to jump apart like this when his mother knocked on the basement door during one medical school holiday visit or another.

"I have the results you wanted, Dr. Shepherd."

"Thank you." He glances back at Addison and then, when the resident tactfully turns away, he leans in to give her a quick kiss. "Stop worrying," he says, low enough that only she can hear, "until we have something to worry about. Okay?"

"Okay," she says, but not until he's already in the doorway studying the results, and so quietly that he can hardly make out the word.

..

… _until we have something to worry about._

She's nauseated and it's not the baby's fault. She's resting a hand on what the rest of the hospital hopefully still thinks, to the extent her wardrobe and white coat permit, is the result of a few too many late-night burgers.

Ooh. A late-night burger sounds pretty good right now, actually. So maybe she's not _that_ nauseated, or maybe her breakfast-loving fetus is branching out to other meals. That would be nice – it's already traitorous enough that the baby insists she sit down to breakfast each day, and Derek is already smug enough about his genetic imprint.

It's annoying.

(It's not annoying. It would be easier if it were. It's actually endearing, so endearing she could cry now just thinking about it – which is _also_ unfair because she's a ball of hormones, and she's exhausted, and they really need to figure out a way for men to carry babies so they can be the ones to deal with all this upheaval.)

Male pregnancy. She'll get right on that. Maybe a third fellowship?

Maybe she doesn't really want to hand over gestation to her husband, though. Maybe these moments that are just the two of them, just her and the life growing inside her, aren't so bad at all. Maybe they're everything.

Did she mention she's hormonal?

"Dr. Shepherd?"

 _Saved by the non-bell._

Or by the resident, anyway.

"Yes." She schools her face into something stern. Secret-keeping is stressful enough and hard enough that giving herself away with some kind of – sloppy hormonal _happiness_ or whatever is just not going to fly.

..

So.

Where was she?

Oh, right.

Melissa thinks there's nothing to worry about.

Derek thinks there's nothing to worry about.

Addison, who is the only person who actually knows everything, does think there's something to worry about.

Something … or a few things. Enough to count.

There's her fears about the baby that no amount of _don't worry_ from Melissa are going to assuage.

There's the way her husband can't seem to keep from touching the shape of that baby, which would be endearing and lovely except that the trust in his eyes makes her feel like the world's worst wife.

There's the fact that she very well may be the world's worst wife, considering the secrets she's still keeping from her husband. Which leads her to the next thing.

Which is the way her husband looked at her in the hotel room after she told him she stayed with Mark in New York … told him some of it, a little of it, a surface scratch when the underneath is a festering wound … the way he looked at her and asked her, no more secrets?

There's the way she answered him: no more secrets.

Then there are the secrets themselves.

The ghost of a secret that was the only choice she could make at the time. She's been practicing long enough to know it's normal for her to think of it, to feel troubled by it, even if she doesn't regret it. Not exactly. But … it's different. It's different when you're the patient. It's different when your husband doesn't know, can't know … and when your doctor doesn't know either.

There's the way it feels to keep a secret about her medical history from the woman she tasked with treating her, one more breach of trust. Sometimes her life feels like a funhouse mirror and everywhere she looks her past mistakes threaten to swell up and hide the perfect reflection of what she almost has now.

Almost.

Because above all, what she worries about?

Is everything falling apart.

So, yeah.

Her husband's persistent optimism ... that's his thing. He doesn't have anything to worry about?

Great.

Addison … not so much.

 _.._

As befitting a man who's not worrying, and one with a child on the way and an annoyingly earnest tendency toward positivity in general, Derek is cheerful.

Cheerful and chatty.

 _Oh, what she wouldn't have given for some of this a few months ago._

As it is, she's silent in the car, not even commenting when he waits until longer than she would have to make the first left turn.

Derek keeps talking. She wishes he would just shut up.

… yeah, she doesn't, not really. His commentary is keeping her distracted, and she needs it, and he fills her in on his procedure that morning in enough detail that, along with the thrum of the motor and the steadily passing scenery out the window, it keeps a fair amount of the anxiety at bay.

But then her heels are echoing on the polished floors of the building's lobby, she's staring up at the ostensibly charming old-school floor indicators atop the elevators, and her heart starts churning in turn.

Derek is unperturbed.

"So we're waiting on the NT," he reminds her, unnecessarily, "but we'll get the Nip-T results this morning."

 _Thanks for the helpful summary._ With some effort, she just nods.

"Why is the test Nip-T, anyway," he muses as the elevator doors open, apparently the first time he's considered its pronunciation, "and not N.I.P.T.?"

"I don't know, Derek," she responds irritably, stabbing at the button for Melissa's floor, "why is the artery A-comm and not A.C.?"

"Because it just is," he says, as if that's a reasonable answer.

"Exactly." She pauses, then sighs. "You do realize OBGYN is a medical specialty, right?"

"Do you really want me to answer that?"

"Very funny." She glares at him. "You're not studying for the boards with Mark now, Derek. These are the people you're trusting to bring your baby into the world, and you should have some respect for them."

Surprisingly, she manages to get that out with even flinching at the word _Mark_ and somehow, so does he.

"I'm trusting _you_ to bring my baby into the world," Derek says mildly. "And I have plenty of respect for you."

Professionally, anyway.

All she does is raise an eyebrow.

"I'm not the OB," she reminds him coolly. "I'm the patient."

He's smiling – ugh, he _tricked_ her into saying that.

"I know you're the patient," he says, managing not to sound too smug, "but I assumed you'd also be bossing around your OB."

She huffs just a little in response.

"And everyone else," he continues, "since you _are_ the best. But maybe I was wrong. I must have been thinking of my other wife."

She swats him with her free hand, pretending not to be pleased, and he catches her hand, giving it a little squeeze.

"We're going to find out the baby's gender," he says.

He sounds so excited her heart turns over, some of her anxiety and all of her annoyance disappearing in a flood of that same hormonal happiness.

 _Damn it._

 _.._

"I'm sorry, can you repeat that?" Derek leans forward in his chair and Addison watches, far less anxious now that the chromosomal markers she was waiting to hear about sounded just the way she wanted.

"I said the baby's gender is … indeterminate," Melissa repeats patiently.

"Inde – what?" Derek's eyes widen. "Does that mean …" he lowers his voice, "… _both_?"

Addison covers her mouth with her hand to keep from laughing. "It's not an uncommon result," she says, "and no, it does not mean _both._ "

"Addison," Melissa props a hand on her hip. "Remember, you did ask me to be your doctor, and we discussed this …"

"Right." Addison smiles at her. "Sorry. You tell him, then."

Melissa turns to Derek. "It's not an uncommon result," she repeats. "And no, it does not mean _both_."

"You're a crack team," Derek says, sounding mildly amused and not too put out. "But can one of you please tell me what it actually does mean?"

"Skipping over the part you don't care about," Melissa says, "an indeterminate gender result on the Nip-T tends to happen when the baby is male."

"I _knew_ it!" Derek turns to Addison and grabs her hand. "Didn't I say it was a boy?"

"You did say it was a boy." She can't help smiling at his expression.

"It's not definite," Melissa reminds them. "What are you going to say if you end up with a girl?" She raises her eyebrows at Derek.

"I'd be thrilled with a girl," Derek says, so sincerely and sweetly that Addison feels her eyes fill with tears. She doesn't deserve this, a baby bringing out the best in her husband and in her. It's not supposed to work that way. Not for people like her.

"But I still think it's a boy," Derek adds. "I'm convinced."

"He's a neurosurgeon," Addison tells Melissa drily. "That gives him special insight into infant genitalia."

"Well, when you put it that way … ."

"Very funny." Derek frowns at her, then can't seem to keep his face schooled and smiles instead. "No increased risk markers," he says, glancing from Melissa to Addison.

"No increased risk markers," Melissa repeats.

The rest of the visit is a blur of scheduling and discussion heavy with relief. In the hallway, waiting for the elevator, Derek turns to her.

"It's a boy," he says.

"Probably."

"It's probably a boy," Derek amends.

They stand there for a moment, grinning at each other like idiots, and the world stops turning and her lies stop hurting and everything is perfect.

"Addison?" he says as the elevator whisks them to the lobby.

"Yes?"

"Will you do something with me?"

..

"I can't believe I let you take me _fishing_ ," she sighs.

"Who says I'm taking you fishing? I'm taking my son fishing," Derek says, smiling at her as they face each other in his boat. "You're his ride."

"His _ride_?" She laughs, outraged, which rocks the boat a little. "And I'm sorry, _your_ son?"

She raises her eyebrows.

"Semantics." He laughs a little, and then so does she.

This is really happening.

The morning after they learned the likely gender of their … breakfast-loving baby, here they are: fishing.

They're … fishing.

He wants her company. He wants her there. He tightened her lifejacket twice before she batted at his hands and reminded him she's been swimming since before the moon landing.

And now they're fishing.

Together.

Inside her head – her traitorous, awful head, the one that's a liar and the one she can barely look at in the mirror – a beatific idealized version of herself (in other words, her 1995 body but her 2005 hair), in a diaphanous white gown, is twirling in a circle, tossing petals into the wind.

 _He hates me not._

 _He hates me not._

 _He hates me not so much he might even love me._

 _He loves me._

 _He actually loves me._

Outside her head – where the fresh breeze moves her hair, and her husband is smiling at her and their son – their _son_ – is growing inside her … it's just perfect enough that she can still pretend it's real.

Until she remembers, of course … and she flinches.

"Did you get a bite?" Derek asks, apparently having noticed her movement.

"No." Addison pauses, glancing at him. "And, uh, I don't know if I want one."

"If you get one … and you don't want breakfast … we can throw it back."

"Mm. No. That's a trick. See, I _do_ want breakfast – which is your son's fault, by the way," she adds, not missing his expression in his eyes at the words _your son_ , "but I don't want that breakfast to be trout."

Derek shakes his head. "Remind me what you have against trout?"

"I thought you read the memo."

"The memo was on what you have against the trailer."

"I'll have to supplement it, then." She considers the question. "Fishing is cruel."

"… says the only person I know who has _actually_ been on a fox hunt." He frowns. "And aren't fox hunts illegal, anyway?"

"It was on the old Bradford estate in Ringwood," she reminds him. "Everything is legal in New Jersey."

They exchange a smile and then he lifts a gloved finger near his lips – not quite touching, thankfully, because she'd like to kiss those lips sometime in the near future and his gloves are … not kissable.

"Quiet," he says softly, "so we don't scare the fish."

She concentrates on being quiet.

On not speaking.

She closes her eyes, briefly, letting the pale dawn sunlight tickle her lids, the cool spring breeze moving her hair. It smells – well, little fishy, but that's probably Derek's fishing vest. It also smells clean, and green, and fresh. There are soft nature sounds, the kind she'd normally pay to have piped into a high-tech noise machine for things like Relaxation or Soothing Calm or whatever and it's kind of … nice.

It's nice.

Nice enough that when she opens her eyes, she doesn't even feel dizzy when she looks down at the surface of the water. At the reflection of her face gazing back at her.

 _Liar_ , it reminds her.

She swallows hard.

 _The truth will come out. In time, it will come out._ _It always does. It just –_

"You're caught," Derek says softly, and her heart skips a beat.

She freezes.

 _How did he –_

"You caught one," he repeats, and she realizes she misheard him.

"Throw it back."

"You're too soft," he teases her.

She smiles faintly, trying not to look too closely at the fish.

"I'm sensitive … remember?"

"I do remember." He gestures toward her fishing rod. "You sure?"

Is she sure she wants to throw back the fish?

She looks at the trout dancing on the line, flopping back and forth, and feels guilt curdling in her stomach, nausea that has nothing to do with the baby inside her womb.

The fish, stuck, is terrified.

Desperate.

 _Caught._

"Throw it back," she cries. "Derek, throw it back!"

"Okay, I will." Derek looks at her curiously, but doesn't speak again until he's released the fish back into the lake.

She feels the cool water like her own relief.

"Addie. Are you okay? You want to head back?"

She blinks.

"Talk to me."

 _I tried. But I failed. And now it's too late._

"No, I'm fine," she says. "We don't have to go yet."

It's enough that she ruined the night he planned at the hotel with her ill-timed confession, with her guilt. The last thing she needs to do is let her guilt ruin this fishing morning. This togetherness on the lake. She's done enough.

"Okay." Derek pats her denim-clad leg with one gloved hand. "But you already saved a fish's life – not bad for a morning's work."

She even smiles.

Her lips part a little, like the fish on the line before Derek threw it back.

Before it was saved.

The thing is … the fish is okay now.

But Addison?

Well.

The air is fresh, the lake is beautiful – even if she's not ready to admit that to Derek – her pregnancy is healthy and her husband is smiling at her.

 _Smiling._

Addison … is stuck. Stuck like a fish, hooked on her own lie.

No less trapped, no less desperate.

Except no one's going to throw her back.

"Addie … you sure you're okay?"

"I'm sure." She smiles wider – it's not that hard, this kind of lie. She just looks at his soft eyes and concentrates on the life she's growing inside her, the one that's both of theirs. "I'm sure," she says again; he looks satisfied, and then it's quiet enough to hear those soft nature sounds again, the barely-there movement of water and two sets of breaths, connected.

..

Disconnecting from everything else – that's the real beauty of fishing, right?

The goal. Or something like that.

Out in the middle of nowhere, quiet, no electronics, nothing tethering you the rest of the world.

But when they get back to the trailer, each of them has a message waiting. They listen silently, in tandem, slightly turned away, and then hang up and face each other.

"Good news," Derek says.

"Good."

"And?" He raises his eyebrows. "What about you?"

"My news?" She considers the question. "It's … well, it's not _bad_ news, I guess. It's … complicated."

"All right, then. Ladies first," Derek says, gesturing for her to start.

"Such a gentleman," she teases, then glances down at her admittedly _slightly_ showing belly. "But so is he. Your news first."

Derek nods. "My news was the vet," he says, smiling. " _Finn._ Calling to say Doc made it through."

"He made it through!" She hugs him hard, impulsively, even as she feels his hands on her hips holding her slightly away from him. "Derek … the baby's fine."

"I'm glad to hear you say that," he teases, but he allows a closer embrace and she hangs on an extra moment.

"What about your news?" he asks once they've separated.

"My news … was Miranda Bailey," she reports.

Derek tilts his head, apparently trying to read her expression. "What did she say?"

"She said Richard requests – no, insists on – the pleasure of our company at the _prom_ he's throwing for his niece. At the hospital."

"A prom," Derek repeats slowly, "at the hospital … for his niece."

Addison nods. "Camille."

"The one who – "

She nods.

"And that's not bad news, but it's not good news," Derek continues, trying to put it together, "because … " and then he stops, his expression turning solemn.

"Yeah." Addison studies the floor for a moment, her throat thickening.

She's unfortunately used to tragic cases. She has to be. But things feel different now. They just do. And all she can think as she steps forward into her husband's arms is –

"Her poor parents," she whispers, and Derek is murmuring something against her head, something like, _I was just thinking the same thing._

This embrace is very different from the one celebrating Doc's successful procedure. This time she holds on tightly, feeling his heartbeat against her body, and he doesn't attempt to loosen her grip or tease her about the baby; if anything, he's holding on even tighter. He rests his chin on her shoulder and she can feel the sadness just in the weight of it; she knows his movements and the shape of him that well. She's resting her cheek on the shoulder of his jacket, not complaining about the dampness or the fact that they were fishing, just drawing strength from the closeness.

It's not long – but long enough that she feels a little calmer when she draws back, a little steadier. His gaze is gentle enough to make her feel a little wobbly.

"Addison?"

"Yes?" she whispers.

"Let's go see our dog."

She nods, tucking her hair behind her ears as she gathers herself together.

"Let's see our dog," he repeats, "… and then let's see about a tux."

"A tux?"

"We have a prom to attend."

She smiles. "We do have a prom to attend."

Which does mean a tux.

And a dress.

And it needs to fit better than the dress she tries on after her shower and then casts aside for the way it clings to her lower body. She can admit it looks good, objectively, for a person who's not hiding her pregnancy, highlighting the shape of her and she can see in Derek's eyes that he doesn't disagree.

"Don't say I'm showing," she warns him as she hangs the dress back up and hunts for one of the high-waisted skirts that hasn't let her down yet.

"I didn't say anything."

"Not out loud, anyway."

She can't be that grumpy, not once she's dressed and relatively … _hidden_ … not with his arms sliding around her from behind the way they used to; _god_ , she's missed these little touches, just the sheer amount of contact they would have. It makes the cold distance between them those first few months in Seattle feel even stranger, even more painful. She has a feel flash of pity for that lonely woman, the one who flew here from New York confused and still smarting from heartbreak.

"Not out loud," he repeats her words from earlier. "Never out loud. I've been married for eleven years; I'm not an idiot."

"Mm." She tilts her head, pretending to think about something. "Can I agree with just _one_ of those things … and not the other?"

"Very amusing." He kisses her cheek, holding her back against him for a moment, and then releases her. "Finish getting ready sometime before the next presidential administration and we can go see what Seattle has to offer in terms of pregnant prom fashion."

She winces a little instinctively.

"It can't be worse than the last time, can it?" Derek has a mock-nostalgic look on his face. "Those pictures – what color was that? Teal?"

"Turquoise," she corrects him with dignity, "and it was supposed to bring out my eyes."

"As opposed to bringing out the rubber bands on your braces?"

She lifts an eyebrow. "Derek, I don't think you really want to start reminiscing about prom photos, do you? Because I remember one – what was the theme again, _Celebration Under the Unflattering Lighting?_ "

"Something like that."

"No, it was great. Whatever you did to your hair was – "

"Okay, that's enough." He shakes his head at her, looking amused. "I didn't say anything about _your_ hair. Those puffy bangs – "

" – were very fashionable at the time," she says with dignity.

"Is that what Jif said?"

"His name was Skippy, Derek."

"I knew it was a – "

" – _brand of peanut butter_ ," she finishes for him, shaking her head. "It's funny every single time, really."

"It is?"

"No." She ducks out of the way when he reaches for her, smiling. "That was a terrible prom," she admits as she gives her reflection one more once-over.

"As was mine." Derek holds out her jacket. "Betsy Reilly – who agreed to go with me as a favor to Nancy, if you'd forgotten – got so tired of waiting for me to ask her to dance that she ended up – "

… _dancing with Mark,_ that's the end of the story, but although neither of them finishes it, they manage to keep the mood in the trailer going, which is a relief.

"Not even one dance?" she asks lightly, though she knows the story well.

"Not one," he confirms. "You know I never dance in public."

"With one exception," she prompts.

"Just one." He settles her jacket over her shoulders and, when she turns around to smile at him, lifts a few locks of her long hair out of the collar.

How can she be teary-eyed in his embrace thinking of a gravely ill child one moment, and then laughing with him over the poorly-chosen fashion of their teenaged years next, and then feeling her heart flutter at the thought of his arms around her, the only girl he's ever willingly squired on the dance floor? All those emotions one after the other, no less sincere or deeply felt for each one's close proximity to the next? She could say it's pregnancy hormones, or the natural effect of more than a decade and a half with the same person.

It's marriage, is what it is, and she smiles, a little misty-eyed, at her husband, and thinks maybe he understands.

"Richard wants the prom to be fun," Addison says quietly. "Festive. Like a – like a real one."

"Well, at least we know it will be better than our last proms," he offers.

That goes without saying.

"Addie?"

She turns to him.

"Let's go see our dog."

"And our tux."

"And our dress."

" _Our_ dress," she teases. "You want to share it?"

"Not if it's turquoise."

She's still laughing a little when he holds open the trailer door for her, misty air refreshing on her heated face.

What was that Derek said – not to worry, not until there's something to worry about?

She's going to give it a shot.

If not for her sake – then at least for the baby's.

..

"Did you miss us? … Oh, he _definitely_ missed us," Addison reports without waiting for an answer. Doc is currently painting both their faces with tired but eager kisses, so he probably wouldn't be able to answer even if he spoke English.

"I think it's safe to say he missed you," the vet says; he's smiling when Derek looks up.

He gets it: fine, a vet isn't exactly a … doctor, but Derek does know the feeling of standing by a patient's bedside after a successful surgery, basking in the family's shared gratitude and relief.

Doc pants with faintly muted pleasure, clearly still tired from the procedure and attendant anesthesia. Addison is stroking his head, cooing to him, and Derek gives the dog's ears an affectionate scratch while he enjoys watching their reunion.

"He did well," Dr. Dandridge - _call me Finn, please -_ assures them. "It's not a miracle cure, but the goal was to get him some time."

"And you did, didn't you?" Addison looks up at the vet, her hands still buried in Doc's thick fur. "You got him some time?"

The vet nods.

"And he's … okay?" Addison asks quietly.

Derek looks from his wife to his vet. Addison is infinitely articulate in situations where most people wouldn't be able to pronounce the necessary terms, much less use them correctly - but this isn't medicine, this is something much more primal and emotional and he understands what she's asking even if the vet's expression suggests he doesn't.

"Quality of life," Derek says, not missing the look of relief Addison throws him. "We just want to make sure we're not being … selfish … wanting to give Doc more time."

"It's not selfish," the vet says. "It's caring, that you're asking, and even if you did just want his company, well … he's a pretty great dog. But you care, so you're asking, and right now, yes ... Doc is okay."

Derek and Addison exchange a glance.

"You probably want to ask me for how long … but I don't have an answer for that, not right now," the vet says. "Only Doc does, and not in a conscious way. He has the two of you to interpret for him, though. As long as he's still enjoying his life … then he's okay. And you two know best when he's enjoying his life."

Doc, perhaps wondering why his name has been said so many times without the accompaniment of a treat or the offer of a walk, barks.

"Yes, we know you're still here," Derek says, rubbing the dog's muzzle as Doc pants appreciatively. "We didn't forget about you."

"When can we take him home?" Addison asks.

"Tomorrow," the vet says. "We'll want to monitor him for the rest of the day and through the night, but tomorrow morning he'll be all yours."

"When he comes home," Addison says tentatively, and Derek can't help noticing she's called the trailer _home_ twice in two sentences in a row, "will he be … "

"Himself?" the vet asks.

Addison nods.

Derek is touched by her question. He's feeling warm, magnanimous, as he looks at her. She's not bothering to hide her pregnancy with posture or lab coat, not here in the vet's office, and the little swell of her belly fills him with an excited sort of pride … something soft and anticipatory and protective; he wants to go home too. Home with Doc and Addison and the baby growing inside of her and it's foolishly sentimental, but he doesn't try to censor himself, just lets the feeling wash over him.

"He'll be himself," the vet is saying. "Just expect him to be tired for the rest of the day once he's back with you, from the medication weaning and also the change of scenery. He'll sleep a lot, his appetite will gradually increase."

"Any change to his diet?" Addison asks.

"Nothing prescribed. Let him eat what he wants, what he's in the mood for," the vet says. "Well. Within reason. Meredith told me about the time she had to wrestle an old shoe out of his mouth up at the trail."

It's suddenly very warm in the vet's office.

Derek's heart is pounding under his collar and for a moment he's not sure why, as if his nervous system has figured out where this is going before the rest of him can catch up.

Because something is wrong.

The feel of the room has changed, little fizzes of fear and confusion like dust particles in the air.

He looks at Addison's frozen profile, but she's not looking at him.

She's looking at the vet.

She's parting her lips, she's about to speak, but half of him must think it's not too late, he can still stop this … .

"We should probably get going," he says, glancing at his watch. "I told Richard we needed a few hours this morning, but it's getting late."

"Did you say an old shoe?" Addison asks, her tone uncertain.

The vet nods, smiling.

Of course he's smiling – he has no idea what he's saying even though Derek, all of a sudden, does.

And it's not good.

"An old shoe," Finn confirms before Derek can react.

It's not good at all.

He's remembering now: a morning that seems like a lifetime ago, returning from a surreptitious walk, a slip of the tongue - _we_ instead of _I -_ hastily covered up before his wife could notice.

But there's nothing he can do except watch it unfold as if in slow motion. The vet is still talking, Addison still listening.

"Actually, I think she said it was a _very old_ shoe," the vet elaborates now, smiling. "Meredith said she was worried the whole time that there would be an old foot inside it, too."

Addison is staring at him, her eyes wide this time with genuine shock.

And something worse than that behind it, too.

What was that he said the morning before, in his office, to Addison? _Stop worrying … until we have something_ _something to worry about._

Is now a good time to start?

* * *

 _To be continued. I hope you enjoyed! I've been looking forward to sharing the fishing scene with you and also to managing to include a Hamilton line in an Addek story … I couldn't help it, but anyone who notices gets a gold star. Thank you so much for reading. Please review and let me know what you thought - it keeps me motivated and on track and will help me make it BEFORE midnight next week. See you next Sunday!_


	14. 99 Black Balloons

_**A/N: What can I say? A million THANK YOUs to those of you who kept the faith in QPQ Sundays and reviewed, PMd, and kept reading. It's been a crazy couple of weeks, but I'm back. And while fic-block was plaguing me, I can tell you that the block has cleared and here we are with a nice meaty Chapter 14. It's ... a bit of a wild ride, so hold on and I hope you enjoy. Thank you again for reading - you are all the best. In case you haven't reread Chapter 13 in a while, recall that it ended just after Finn inadvertently let slip to Addison that Derek and Meredith took a few secret walks with Doc.**_

* * *

 ** _99 Black Balloons  
_**

 ** _.._**

 _Gestational Age: twelve weeks, one day  
Baby is Still the Size of a: plum  
Baby's Mother is: catching on  
Baby's Father is: in the doghouse  
Baby's Dog is: at the vet's house  
Baby's Genes Are: pretty questionable at this point, but at least he'll have good hair?  
Hormones are: a bitch_

* * *

Derek is playing the scene again, in semi-slow motion, like a dream.

... or a horror movie.

He's standing there with Doc, weeks ago now, freshly returned from their walk, flushed from exertion and the remaining anxiety of a secret.

 _Addison smiles a little. Tentative. "Did he give you any trouble out on the trail?" she asks, looking fondly at Doc._

 _"No. Well, he did try to eat a particularly filthy stray shoe. I had to chase him down."_

 _"We know he likes to eat shoes." Addison takes a sip of coffee. "At least it wasn't one of mine."_

 _"No, it definitely wasn't one of yours. And it looked like it had been there for a while. It was a very old shoe."_

 _Addison wrinkles her nose. "At least there wasn't a very old foot in it," she says._

 _"That's just what she said."_

 _He hears the words as if they come from a stranger's mouth, lips thick._

 _Time suddenly slows down._ _Shepherd, you idiot._

 _"She?" Addison asks. Time jerks forward again and he sees that his wife looks confused, but not particularly suspicious._

 _"A couple of hikers helped me chase Doc down," he says, relieved but also a little troubled by his own lie, there's no time to question it now._

 _"Ah." Addison nods. "Good thing you weren't alone out there, then."_

And he fizzles back to the present.

Maybe it was foolish to think he got away with it – with anything.

That morning, she didn't question him.

But now, she's staring at him.

He would look away, but he's not capable right now, so he just meets her gaze while silently wondering how long it would take to strangle the vet and make it look like an accident.

"Meredith was there," Addison says, slowly. "On the trail."

Like she's putting pieces together.

Why does she have to have such a good memory? It used to be something they'd joke about, and it's something he knows has been a boon when it comes to treating patients and remembering the steps of complicated procedures.

Now, though, he's not so thrilled about it. He gives Finn a sidelong glance – _why are you still here?_ But the vet is just standing there, blandly pleasant as usual, apparently not realizing the minefield he's forced them onto.

"I remember," Addison says now, before he can speak. "That morning … "

She doesn't have to finish. Her hand is already drifting toward the proof of it. Derek watches the way her palm cups her lower belly. She's trying to make him feel guilty, and it's working; he's not sure which is worse.

"I already knew," Addison says, her tone thoughtful. "That morning, I already knew I was ..."

That she was pregnant. There's no need to finish the thought; a decade and a half later, they're more or less beyond that.

"Well, I didn't know," Derek reminds her, a little annoyance penetrating the guilt. "Because you didn't tell me."

"You didn't give me a chance to tell you, and – " she stops. "No. This isn't about my not telling you, Derek, this is about your not telling _me_."

"There was nothing to tell you."

"Then why didn't you tell me?"

For a moment they just stare at each other, their words moving in a circle without resolution.

He considers honesty. He should be honest. But what would that look like, here? He's been holding those walks with Meredith close to the vest – the literal vest, the fishing vest, really – and convincing himself they didn't matter now that they'd fizzled out.

"Forget it," Addison says shortly. She turns to the vet. "Of course Meredith was walking Doc. She's still _very_ fond of him."

"Yes, I noticed that. She's spent time with him whenever she's here," the vet says warmly.

Derek turns, confused. "Whenever she's – here?"

Now the vet's boyish face looks confused. "I assumed you knew – we've been seeing each other."

His words hang in the air, pounding like a heartbeat.

 _We've been seeing each other._

They've been –

"You and Meredith?" Derek croaks before he can stop himself. "Seeing each other?"

Finn nods.

Meanwhile, his heart is pounding. _Dating the vet._ Nice of Meredith to tell him.

When Derek doesn't respond, the vet clears his throat. "I was just saying, she was happy to hear about Doc's improvement too."

"I guess there's no canine HIPAA," Addison says, smirking, apparently having decided to turn on the charm for the vet instead of addressing Derek's reaction.

He should be grateful for that, except he knows his wife too well. She's set whatever she's feeling aside so they can deal with it on turf more suited to warfare. They've done this before. Of course, they're Derek and Addison; they can turn any ground into battleground.

"So, I know you two want to get going – I just have some papers for you to sign," The vet intercedes, looking just confused enough that he seems to be picking up on the tension in the room … but with that same blandly pleasant expression he always wears as he leaves the two of them alone.

Great.

 _Really, Meredith? You went for the vet?_

He's aware Meredith was hurt, when he chose Addison. He can even sort of acknowledge that he didn't follow the most basic of campground rules: leave things a little better than how you found them.

(Thought it's not like he was trying to hurt her. He was the one who had the difficult choice to make.)

But he still thought she had better taste than … a vet.

It doesn't matter.

He doesn't care.

Okay? He doesn't.

So Meredith was walking Doc at his side with one hand and, with the other …

He grimaces at the poor choice of wording.

And the image.

The image of –

"Derek."

He turns at his name. Addison is glaring at him. The effect is somewhat lessened by her posture – away from the hospital, in front of only the vet, she's not bothering to try hide anything and the slight swell of her pregnancy is obvious under her silky top.

She's pregnant.

She's pregnant with his child and he's here, he's in this, and it's his job to reassure her. He opens his mouth to say something comforting.

"I'll tell you what. Why don't you wait for Finn to get back with the paperwork, and then the two of you can just whip it out right here and I'll find some measuring tape," Addison suggests sweetly.

His face flushes with a combination of anger and shame.

Mostly anger.

"Honey, it's _fine_ ," she continues in that faux-conciliatory tone again, "I can also … leave you two alone to arm wrestle it out, if you'd rather?" She gestures from Derek to Finn, who is headed toward them carrying a manila folder.

"Drop it, Addison," he warns, keeping his voice low and casting a glance at Finn, who has tactfully busied himself with Doc but is only a few feet away.

"Drop it?" she repeats, widening her eyes. The eyes that look so innocent when she wants them to.

He just nods. "Now is not the time to talk about this."

"Now is never the time for you talk about things, Derek, unless it happens to suit you."

"Addison." He massages his forehead.

This … is not the way things were supposed to go.

"Derek," she repeats, and his jaw tightens.

"If one of you can just sign here, and here," the vet intercedes and Derek grips the pen with a shaking fist that he wouldn't mind using on the very same vet right now. That vet is smiling at him, taking the papers and heading for his office, _be back in a moment_ , and Derek is nodding numbly.

" _Derek_."

"Addison … let's not do this here." He keeps his voice low as he takes her arm, intending to move them both toward the door; if she's going to flip out this really isn't the place for it. He's half thinking she'll be on board – she'll want to keep her composure in front of the cub scout-face vet but then again despite her demeanor most of the time Addison's never been above a little public flipout when pushed to her limits. Oddly enough, he tends to be the reason, or at least the witness. She'd probably say the former, but then she says a lot of things. Still, he used to find it flattering, when he was young and naïve, that he could make her lose control.

"You're right, let's drop it. We can just plan for the prom instead. Tell you what," she says, gesturing broadly with faux-generosity, her tone purposefully musing, "why don't I stay home, and you can just spend the time being _possessive_ over your girlfriend?"

The nerve.

"She's not my girlfriend." His heart is beating too fast to keep up with it now and he moves a step closer. "And are you really in a position to be criticizing _my_ wandering eye?"

"So you acknowledge you have a wandering eye."

He massages his temples. "Would you just shut up," he mutters tiredly.

She raises an eyebrow. "Your son can hear you, you know."

Now his eyebrows rise at the unfairness of it. "Then he can also hear how irrational his mother is being."

"Irrational." Addison raises her eyebrows. "Seriously?"

"Addison." He takes a deep breath.

"And he can't hear anything yet, which you'd know if you ever listened to me when I talk about my work."

He blinks. "That's where you're going with this?"

She's squared off at the shoulders, primed for a fight. Addison is always primed for a fight; he'd probably worry more if she were primed for defeat.

But he pushes aside the thought of that.

She's pregnant.

He's not.

She gets to be irrational. Right? Hormones and ... all of that?

She's glaring at him, still set for a fight, but he's not going to do it. He's going to be better than that.

"Addison. I was just surprised," he says quietly, "that's all. I didn't know she was dating the vet, and now I know. Surprised. But it doesn't matter to me."

"It looked like it mattered to you."

"Maybe it looked like it mattered to me, but it doesn't." He's keeping his tone purposefully soothing now and it seems to be working … Addison looks somewhat mollified.

"Well. Papers are in place. Doc's all set." Finn is back, looking from one of them to the other; if he's anxious for them to leave Derek can't exactly blame him.

Derek doesn't respond. He busies himself scratching Doc behind the ears, rubbing his muzzle and trying to slow his heartbeat down.

"So! I'll see you both soon?" Finn asks, smiling.

Derek grimaces.

"Soon," Addison says quickly, returning the vet's smile; from Derek's angle, it looks a little too predatory for his liking. "We'll definitely see you soon." She turns to Derek. "We should go, honey … we have the whole car ride back to talk."

 _Great._

..

It's show.

It's all show; she loves dropping a line but once they're in the car, she finds she doesn't actually want to talk. She'd blame it on the hormones if she could, but she's been moody all by herself for decades. Just ask her husband.

Her husband who's currently pausing with the keys in the ignition. "Addison."

"Are you going to drive? We need to get to work," she says without looking at him.

" _Addison_." He sighs audibly. "I thought we were …"

 _Going shopping_ , but it sounds foolish in his mind.

"Can you just drive?"

"Fine." He turns the engine over, and doesn't try talking again until they're moving.

"So we're not going shopping," he says.

"Going shopping was _before_."

"Before what? Before – so Meredith and I took Doc on a few walks, Addison, do you need to make such a big deal out of it?"

"It's not the walks." She traces the door handle with two fingers as they drive. "I mean, it is the walks but it's not just the walks. It's you."

"Me," he repeats.

"You." She turns to him, somewhat reluctantly. If he has that – look in his eyes again, she's not sure she can take it. He's focused on the road though, at least. "You, being all … territorial about Meredith dating the vet."

"I wasn't being territorial."

"Then what were you being?"

"Surprised," he says. He runs a hand through his hair before returning it to rest on his thigh. He never drives with two hands when one will do. Efficient: that's her husband. "I was surprised, Addison. That's all."

"You could have told me about the walks."

"You said it wasn't about the walks."

"No, I said – " she stops talking. It's not worth it. She waits until the familiar turnoff is approaching and then touches his arm to stop him from heading toward the terminal.

"Derek … drop me off."

"Drop you off where?"

"At the trailer."

..

Not _home_ , but _at the trailer._ So they're back there again.

He turns to her, confused, while they wait at the red light. "Why?"

"So I can get my car."

"Addison … "

"Derek, what? I can't have a minute to – "

"You can have a minute," he tells her quietly, hoping to forestall a flipout.

It works.

Temporarily, at least.

At the trailer, he throws the jeep into park. "Wait," he says, putting a hand on hers when she reaches for her seatbelt.

"Now what?"

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you about the walks," he says quietly. "They didn't seem – like a big deal at the time."

 _That's not true_ , but he ignores the voice inside his head.

"Meredith needed a friend."

"Meredith has friends."

"She has friends, but they weren't being very good friends at the time."

"Why do you even – " she stops talking. "Fine, Derek. You're such a good guy you just had to be friends with your … girlfriend."

"She's not my girlfriend," he says sharply.

"… behind your wife's back," she finishes, talking over him.

"Addison." He rubs at his temples. "Just – let's talk about this later."

"At the prom?" she asks, glancing up at him.

"At the – at home." He follows her gaze to the front of the trailer. "It's not too late to go shopping," he suggests, the kind of cajoling olive branch that he's fairly certain would have worked at home.

"There, I disagree," she says briskly. She shrugs his hand off and unbuckles her seatbelt. "Oh, and Derek – you'll have to pick up your own tux."

His eyes widen. "You're not ...?"

She shakes her head.

"But I never pick up my suits."

"Oh, I'm aware, Derek, just like you never send out your own dry cleaning. But you managed here in Seattle for two months without a wife, so just … call on some of those skills. Unless Meredith was bringing your … flannel shirts … to the laundromat?"

He's not sure which of the three words Addison pronounces with more disdain: _Meredith, flannel,_ or _laundromat._

Seems like a toss-up.

"Fine," he says irritably. "I'll get my own tux. I'll just ... see you at the prom."

"You do that."

..

Now, alone, she can process, while the zippy little sports car she doesn't even like eats up the road between the trailer and her best bet when it comes to shopping.

Walking.

Derek.

With Meredith Grey.

With Meredith Grey and their dog.

 _Their_ and in hers and Derek's. Not Derek's and Meredith's.

 _He's our dog._

Wasn't Derek just telling her Meredith hadn't seen Doc in … whatever amount of time he said was clearly a farce. She was seeing him, walking with him, both _hims_ , while Addison sat in the trailer like an idiot drinking coffee.

 _Walking._

She throws the car into park, ignoring the appraising glance of two passing men, and saunters into the boutique recommended by the long-suffering concierge at the Archfield. From the outside display window, it's a bit more eclectic than her usual go-tos, but beggars can't really be choosers in Seattle.

She pushes her sunglasses up on top of her head as the door opens, welcoming her with tinkling bells and a tinkly saleswoman with a pixie cut and very wide eyes.

"I'm looking for a dress for a high school prom," Addison says airily.

The saleswoman's brow knits.

"And yes, I'm pushing forty."

Slowly, the saleswoman nods.

"And yes, I'm twelve weeks pregnant," Addison adds, resting a hand over the slight but definitely-there-if-you-look-for-it evidence.

"Well." The saleswoman seems to have gotten her bearings back. "I have no doubt we have just the thing."

"Really?" Addison follows her into the store anyway. Can't hurt to try. "Just the thing for _that_?"

But she's exhausted, frankly, and more than willing to settle on the soft loveseat with a glass of sparkling water and let someone else do the work.

Four dresses in, she props her head in her hand. She doesn't really have all –

" _This_ is it," the saleswoman beams. "It's your color."

Addison scrutinizes the fabric. It's a silky deep blue, somewhere between teal and royal. Shimmery. But it's also short.

"I was assuming long … ."

"It's Seattle," the saleswoman says. "You can get away with a shorter length here."

The cut is unusual, though: she hadn't really considered long sleeves.

"It gets chilly at night!" the saleswoman says heartily. "Can I help you into it?"

Oh, what the hell.

She tries it on.

"What do you think?"

"It's a little … short." She rotates slowly in front of the mirror.

"You have the legs for it."

Clearly. The legs are not in question.

But does she look _slutty_ , is the question, because yes, even twelve-weeks-pregnant, married-but-still-adulteressy, almost-forty-year-old women can look slutty … didn't you know?

"It's still tasteful," the saleswoman assures her now.

Well, the thing is, she doesn't want to be too tasteful either.

There's a thin line.

"The cut is perfect for your … situation," the saleswoman continues, and, okay, she can agree that the empire waist and flowing short skirt hide the new shape of her lower belly. What it doesn't hide, is the shape of her new …

"Don't worry, that could just be a good bra," the saleswoman assures her. "No one will be able to tell."

Really?

Are they looking in the same mirror?

Addison studies her reflection. She hasn't had to buy new lingerie yet, but she's certainly noticed that she's been filling what she has out … nicely. It's a bit of a surprise every time she looks in the mirror, sort of like that one September so many years ago when she put her school uniform on for the first time since the previous summer … and couldn't get the top of the blouse buttoned.

And this time, she doesn't have braces, so it's a more welcome surprise, too. _And_ she can pick her own clothes. Being an adult does have its perks … sometimes.

She spins slowly again, smoothing the dress over her stomach, trying to see if she's showing just enough cleavage – the _entice your husband and make him feel guilty_ amount – or too much cleavage – the _no surprise you cheated on your husband, you slut_ amount.

It's such a fine line sometimes.

"If you'd rather go more conservative … "

"No." Addison shakes her head. "This is great. This is, uh, this is the one."

The saleswoman beams. "I'll go get the double-sided tape," she says.

"It's a high school prom," Addison says.

"And you don't want the principal to find out you're pregnant."

"You know, I might have misjudged you … Tera," she reads her name from her embossed pin.

"I'll accept your apology …" She looks at the black card. "Addison."

She sees the saleswoman notice her rings and she lets her own gaze fall there too. They're sparkling. Maybe _Tera_ , for all her outré views, is still relieved Addison isn't having her prom-date baby out of wedlock.

 _I'm not so sure about that, after this morning, but we'll see._

She was going to have her hair up, because, well, _formal_ and all that, but she's wearing a short dress and she's pregnant and she's going to be as unseemly as all hell if that's what will make this prom bearable.

She has enough time to get what she and Savvy used to refer to as a _rage blowout_. (Which is not, to be clear, what her sisters-in-law would mean by that term, and what Addison is well aware she'll mean by that term in about, oh, twenty-eight weeks if all goes well.)

This kind of _rage blowout_ , though? Savvy coined the term what was it – five years ago? Six? – after Weiss's ex invited them for drinks, all _honey, it's a nice gesture, she's in town for work,_ which Addison knows perfectly well because she was listening in on the call at Savvy's request and it all seems like a very, very long time ago. Another life. The drinks passed uneventfully, the ex brought her partner and apparently wasn't carrying a torch for Weiss all these years, even though Savvy sniffed a fair bit about her anyway. And Savvy … well, Savvy showed up with an incredible blowout, her hair silky and lustrous.

She and Savvy agree: nothing like great hair to pick up a lousy mood – and if you're trying to rub someone's face in it, well, all the better.

..

"Shepherd. You here stag?"

He smiles at Bailey, not quite used to seeing her dressed up, and she glares at him in return. "What do you think you're looking at?" she demands.

"Nothing," he says quickly. Everything is transformed: sparkly, festive, but some things don't change. Bailey, apparently, is one of those things. "And no, I'm not here stag. My wife is – somewhere. Meeting me, I mean."

Bailey looks unimpressed.

"It looks ... festive in here," he says in lieu of any more conversation about Addison's whereabouts. He glances around the atrium at the sea of black and silver balloons, tinsel – even an archway set up for polaroid pictures like the one he remembers from his own long-ago prom.

"Not bad for a hospital prom," Bailey agrees. "I put my interns to work. Better that than any more medicine," she adds darkly. "No more medicine for them."

Derek winces. "Did you find out any more – "

"No." She shakes her head. "We'll deal with it, though. We'll deal with it after the prom." She pauses. "Those are not words they told me I would have to say when I started the program."

"They didn't tell me I'd have to go to the prom when I accepted the job, either," Derek says, offering her a smile. Bailey, as she is wont to do, looks somewhere between smiling at him and smacking him.

"About that date of yours, Shepherd…"

"Maybe she's standing me up," he admits. He wouldn't really blame her; the conversation in the car wasn't what he intended and the one in the vet's office was even worse. He was in the OR most of the rest of the day; presumably, she came to work, but he hasn't caught a glimpse of her since they separated. Somehow when she's next to him, the reality of her pregnancy pressed against him, everything feels fine.

Now, though?

"Maybe," Bailey says. "Or maybe she's right here."

Derek follows her extended finger toward the staircase where Addison is walking slowly toward him, one hand on the banister.

He hasn't seen her since she closed the door of his jeep this morning, and she looks – different, to say the least.

A slightly uncertain smile touches her face as she continues to descend the staircase. She's wearing a short, shimmering blue dress that she must have selected with her pregnancy in mind, because it dips low in the front and ends halfway down her thighs, her long legs distracting enough to make the fluttery skirt seem like a fashion choice and not a pregnancy one.

He meets her at the bottom of the stairs.

"You look beautiful," he says. It's true; he'd say it anyway, but it's true.

"Thanks," she says, fiddling with the surprisingly long sleeves of the dress.

"I didn't get you a corsage," he says abruptly. "Should I have gotten you a corsage?"

She purses her lips. "At least you got yourself a suit."

He glances down at his tuxedo. "I didn't have a lot of choice," he admits, seeing her expression as she takes in the tux.

"But you made one anyway." She reaches out to touch one of his lapels.

He nods.

"So." He shifts a little, slightly uncomfortable, not sure yet her mood. "This is … hospital prom."

"Hospital prom." She says the words slowly. "Does that mean it will be less traumatic than actual prom?"

He smiles slightly at this, then offers her his arm, gesturing toward the festively decorated atrium. "Here's hoping."

..

The atrium is – okay, it's not unrecognizable, but it's certainly festive, with black and silver balloons and the cafeteria-style furniture transformed into cocktail tables and a dais. The floor is all the black and white of tuxedos and the rainbow color of formal dresses.

It's a little awkward, after this morning's argument and the shifting air between them, but considering the disaster that was her Bizzy-setup-life-at-an-all-girls'-school – which meant a stultifying night at the St. Cuthbert's _Senior Social_ , which she supposed was supposed to sound less tacky than _prom._

(Considering she saw at least two couples in the rosebushes who were _not_ leaving enough room for the Holy Spirit between them, and several girls throwing up in the same rosebushes – not at the same time – she's fairly certain the name change didn't do much for the inherent tackiness of gathering mid-to-late teenagers in one sweaty, hormonal hall.)

So this prom, well, it's already better than the first one, in a few ways:

 _One: She looks better._ The raw material was there in 1983, okay, it's not like she's had the Mark Sloan Special … not the surgical one, anyway. The point is, in 1983, she was already her full height – except the rest of her hadn't really caught up, so she spent half the time basically tripping over her elongated legs.

 _Two: She's dressed better._ The turquoise monstrosity in 1983 would be fine if she'd felt good in it at the time – she's aware fashion's a fickle mistress and it's not like her wedding dress is one a bride this year would consider, but to say she felt beautiful in _that_ dress would be an understatement. Just the way Derek looked at her when she walked up the aisle – but that's another story. The turquoise prom dress? She felt gawky, and oversized, and pasty. There are some blues and greens that make her eyes pop and some that … don't, and with the benefit of thirty-cough-cough years, she doesn't have to wonder anymore.

 _Three: Her hairstyle is better._ The puffy bangs. Oh, sweet merciful heavens, the _puffy bangs._ The less said about them, the better. She's fairly certain crimping was involved with the rest of her hair. She did it herself – she wasn't the type of girl, then to have a swath of girlfriends around curling each other's hair and giggling about boys. The closest she got was Archer seeing her off with a warning to use a condom – _you don't want to get pregnant now and ruin your boobs before they even grow in_ , that's what he said. Sage wisdom from the closest thing she had to a caring adult in her life and is it really any wonder she turned out like this?

 _Four: Her date is better._ Oh, understatement of the freaking _millennium._ Her date is not just better than Skippy Gold, which is somewhat like saying rare ribeye is better than the scraps they used to feed the dogs at the country house. Her date is better than … well … most dates, if not any dates, ever. (Derek's arrogance? Was always partly her doing. She's sorry for it sometimes, but mostly … she's not.) Her handsome husband with his luxurious hair – not the frizzy hair he had when they met, which she found endearing, but the oh-so-casually tamed curls he perfected since then. Her date, Derek Double-Edged-Sword Shepherd, whose gaze when it's focused on her can be so intense, so captured and captivating all at once, that the whole world falls away. (And whose gaze, when it's not focused on her, can be so cold and devoid of their shared history that it takes her breath away. But those days are gone now. They're nothing but bad memory.) Her date, her present, the here and now, is smiling at her and she's always been the only person he'll dance with in public. She's proud of it. She's proud of him.

 _Five: The punch is better._ Okay, this one is an assumption: the punch at St. Cuthbert's was spiked with grain alcohol so strong she's amazed it didn't eat away her esophagus. Her years of sampling straight gin with her brother when her parents entertained strengthened her innards, at least, but it was still vile, one part fruity cough syrup to two parts alcohol poisoning.

 _Six: The guests are less likely to grope her._ This is another assumption: one that goes along with the general belief that teenagers are animals and too many of them in one room is too _Lord of the Flies_ for her liking. Thankfully the multilayered 1980s taffeta meant that the boys who tried to grab her ass on the dimly-lit dance floor got nothing more than a handful of turquoise silk. And then there was the catch-22 when Trey Davenport put his hand up her skirt while she was waiting at the coat check and when she turned around, outraged, said, _oh, sorry, I thought you were someone else._ Presumably, he mistook her for Kitty Forsyth, who also had long red hair – but no braces, no freckles, no man shoulders, and definitely no lisp. That was Prom 1.0 in a nutshell: accidentally groped when she was mistaken for someone prettier and _god_ , it's really a good thing no one else has access to the inside of her head.

 _Seven: She might actually have a good time._ Okay, this one could be stretching it, and feels selfish since the reasoning behind the prom is poignant-bordering-on-tragic, but it's an evening with her husband. Her tuxedo-clad husband, and while it isn't a tuxedo she would have selected – or even one she would have glanced at before discounting it – it's still a tuxedo, and it's neither of their faults that her husband's shoulders were made for suits. Or that his arms were made for her and she'd blush at something so … _sentimental_ , except that she can't help looking hungrily at those arms in his tux jacket. She's swimming in sense memory of the way that fabric has felt, will feel, when he takes her in his arms to dance. It's an itch and they're here to scratch it. Tonight.

"Addie, thank you for coming."

They pause at the punch table, Adele coming to greet them.

"Of course we came." Addison smiles warmly at her – Adele is someone she'd like to tell her secret, actually, she's certain the older woman would be happy for her … certainly happier than her own mother … but it just doesn't feel right yet. She settles for a comforting squeeze of her hand as they discuss Camille, watching her dance with her beloved uncle.

"She's too young," Adele says quietly.

Addison nods, feeling tears start to gather in her eyes. There's nothing she can say to that.

"Still … she was loved. I'm glad for that boy, and don't tell my husband this," she adds, giving Addison a sadly conspiratorial glances, "but I'm glad. Everyone deserves to be loved."

And then Adele is gone in a rustle of silk.

"You okay?"

She glances at her husband. She's still getting used to this; he's … noticing her. How many times in the Before were her eyes teary and she might as well be screaming and Derek just didn't notice?

"I'm okay," she says quietly. "It's just sad."

"Yeah." He tilts his head, his eyes soft. "It's sad."

They look at each other for a moment.

"You, uh, you want to dance?" she asks hesitantly.

He smiles. "Love to."

..

Time melts on the dance floor; it always does.

They're the only people in the world.

Except while there's a lot to like about this dress, a part of her regrets the sleeves. She's missing that specific sensation of the rough-smooth fabric of his jacket against her bare arms. She's a tactile person – they both are, it's one of the many things they have in common that, like several of the others, can be both weapon and balm. She can feel the warmth of his palm at her back, through the fabric of her dress; if he's missing the sensation of her skin – if he knows she selected the high back in part because her pettier half because she knows his preference for a lower one. Not for fashion-related reasons – heaven forbid he express an opinion on clothing that's not from the _Hunting & Fishing_ catalogues that were still arriving at the brownstone after Derek left – but because he preferred touching her skin when they danced. There was something about that hint of intimacy in a sea of formality – stiff long dresses, the kind of tuxes she would select for him, clinking glasses and the rise and fall murmur of decorous social-professional chatter … and their bare skin, connected. The only ones on the dance floor.

She risks everything – every time, but she can't imagine he knows that – when she tilts her head, ever so slightly, to rest against his.

Dancing … is great.

Dancing, like other activities … is something that just got better and better the older she got.

And dancing with Derek? It's the best she's had. And not just because dancing, let's face it, even formal dancing, is more or less sex with your clothes on. Standing up, everything lined up just so ... .

But really it's that combination of formality and intimacy. Did she mention that before? Because she's definitely a fan.

A big fan.

Big room, lots of people, but looking only at each other. Touching – minimally – only each other. She's a sucker, always has been, for his concentrated attention. That focused look in his eyes, that _you're the center of my world_ Derek Shepherd Gaze™ … and she's a blushing first-year medical student again.

They're moving to the music, their bodies so close they could be one – and between them, hidden under the flowing skirt of her dress, beats the heart of the third person they created together.

She gulps, the emotion of it overcoming her, and feels her husband hold her a little closer in response.

It's … perfect.

It's –

"Is that the vet?"

She jumps a little, startled at his words.

Derek's gaze is fixed across the room and sure enough, when Addison looks up, she sees Finn Dandridge is standing by the punch bowl wearing a tux and a boyish smile, looking calm and … well, _wholesome_ , probably because he has no idea what kind of telenovela/French farce he's walked into.

Her heart flutters. She had the sense when Finn was saying goodbye this morning that he knew about the prom, but she hurried them out of there, a part of her anticipating an awkward run-in – except that what seemed like it might be entertaining or … _something_ now just seems like a bad idea.

Because Derek is frozen, staring at the vet, and her stomach turns over.

"I'm getting a drink," she manages to say between gritted teeth, and stalks toward the refreshment table before Derek can stop her, his fingers sliding out of her hand.

"Addison!" Finn says warmly as she approaches. "You look nice."

"Thanks." She reaches for one of the small bottles of water on the table. "So do you. Is, uh – " She glances around.

"Meredith? She's here, she was just tending to one of her friends." Finn pauses. "Before, at the office …"

Addison nods.

"Derek didn't know Meredith and I were seeing each other? Before, I just assumed he knew, since you did."

She's deciding how to respond when she feels the change in the air next to her.

..

Derek catches the last few words as he approached the refreshment table, and it makes the last few pieces fall into place. He glances at Addison, who looks distinctly uncomfortable; she's touching her necklace in that way she does when she's nervous.

When she looks at him, the flush in her cheeks increases his suspicions.

"Derek! Great to see you. This is quite a … prom," Finn says heartily.

"Finn." Derek smiles with only his mouth, his tone faux-friendly. "Who's taking care of my dog?" he asks bluntly.

"Don't you mean _our_ dog?" Addison asks.

Derek flushes a little. " _Doc_ ," he says. "Where's Doc?"

"Doc is sleeping on a crocheted rug on the hearth," Finn says, looking unruffled. "And as for who's taking care of him … my associate. Don't you ever leave patients in the care of your residents?"

"Not if I want them to live," Derek mutters.

"Nice." Addison shakes her head at him, her mouth a thin line of irritation.

"Finn?"

They all turn as Meredith approaches; she glances nervously from one of them to the other. Finn, smiling warmly, wraps a possessive arm around her shoulders. Derek finds himself tensing, and can sense Addison next to him doing the same thing.

"Isn't this nice," Derek says, looking at Meredith, who seems to be avoiding his gaze. "I just found out I know your new boyfriend."

"Derek," Addison hisses.

Meredith's cheeks are flushed; she looks like she'd like to disappear.

"It just happened," Finn is saying, as if anyone cares about the provenance of his stupid courtship. "Doc was with me, and of course, Meredith was concerned about his welfare."

"Yes," Addison says, glancing at Derek. "I suppose they're still attached to each other … Meredith and Doc."

"They're not still attached to each other," Derek says irritably. "Meredith gave Doc away."

"She didn't give him away," Addison corrects him. "She _placed_ him – "

He rolls his eyes, Addison and her oh-so-polite-adoptive-language –

" – somewhere she would still have access to him."

 _Polite on the surface, not so much below._

"She doesn't still have access to him."

"She does when she's sleeping at the vet's," Addison says, her tone deceptively neutral, even sweet, and he feels one hot swipe of anger in his throat.

"Punch," Meredith says loudly. "I think I'm going to have some punch."

"Great idea." Addison turns away, joining her while Derek glares.

"It's not alcoholic," Finn says, apparently thinking that's the cause of Derek's tense posture.

He grimaces a non-thank-you, except –

"It's still too early to tell most people about the baby, I assume," Finn says quietly. "But it's wonderful news."

How did – he must have noticed today, in his office, except it seems like a stretch and a potentially rude comment; did Addison mention something to him?

He has no time to wonder, though; Derek is flinching as Meredith turns around, cup of punch in hand. He wasn't ready for her to find out –

Except her face looks fully neutral.

..

Addison presses her hand into her forehead as Finn apparently decides to join the episode of Three's Company that's become her life.

She grabs each of Finn and Derek's tuxedo sleeves in her hands and ushers them toward an empty cocktail table in a quiet corner of the room, praying that Meredith will follow too.

"Meredith knows," Derek mutters to her as they walk. "How does she know?"

"She must have figured it out when Addison dropped Doc off," Finn says, still looking cheerful.

No one responds, Meredith shooting Derek and then Addison looks in turn.

"Lucky you were there that night," Finn adds, smiling at Meredith, who looks like she'd like to sink into the floor. "I don't have much experience with pregnant humans, so I'm not sure I could have helped."

"Helped with what?" Derek asks.

"Nothing." Addison tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. She glances at Finn. "Could you help a little less _now_ , please?" she asks politely.

"Helped with what?" Derek repeats insistently, stuck on the night he still can't understand. "Addison?"

" _Nothing_ , Derek," she sighs. "I was just … tired when I brought Doc in."

"Carried him in," Finn intercedes.

"What did I just say about helping, Finn?" Addison asks, turning on him.

"You carried him. You carried him?" Derek's eyes widen as he turns to his wife.

"How did you think I got him inside?" she asks, exasperated.

"Let him walk? Addison, he's forty – "

"It was two seconds, Derek! I parked right outside Finn's office."

"You still had to get him from the trailer to the car."

"And you had to live in a trailer!"

"How is that – " He shakes his head. "Never mind. You shouldn't have been lifting Doc."

"Derek," she says firmly, and when he looks up she shakes her head a little. "I know what I'm doing. I've been treating pregnant women my entire career."

"Without being pregnant."

 _About that …_

"I think we're just going to …"

They both look up as Meredith, a hand on Finn's arm, is trying to excuse them. Then Derek's eyes widen.

"Wait. You were at … _Finn's_ when Addison brought Doc in?"

He turns to Addison. "That's how you knew."

"Derek – "

He turns to Meredith. "That's how you knew about the baby?"

Addison makes frantic _lower your voice_ gestures in his direction and he frowns at her but does so.

Meredith looks at Addison.

Addison looks at Derek.

"Just say it," he snaps.

"She … knew before that," Addison admits. She mouths _sorry_ to Meredith, who looks like she's regretting ever getting involved with either Shepherd. She can't exactly blame her.

"How did – "

"She helped me when I was … when I passed out," Addison admitted.

Derek's eyes widen. "But your – "

"I edited the chart," Addison says quickly. "Meredith had nothing to do with that."

"But you didn't – " Derek is staring at Meredith. She knew? She knew and she didn't –

"I swore her to secrecy. Girl code. It's not her fault," Addison says, her tone mechanical.

Derek looks from one woman to the other. Secrets, everywhere.

This is his life now.

Their life? Their lives.

His mouth opens.

Then closes.

Then opens again.

"You should have told me," he says.

Truthfully? He's not even sure which of them he's talking to.

And neither one looks thrilled with him.

"… more punch," Meredith intercedes. "I'm thirsty. Very thirsty. Finn? Punch? We'll see you later," she tells the Shepherds.

Addison watches, impressed. Derek doesn't think she should lift Doc? Really? Because Meredith, all eighty pounds of her, is doing a pretty decent job dragging Finn away from them.

"You should have said something," Derek says grimly before she turns back to look at him.

"Why?" she asks.

"Because – " he shakes his head. "Because I should have known, Addison."

She stares at him. "I don't know who Mark _dates_ ," she says with dignity.

(Admittedly, she would have liked to know who Mark was dating while he was sleeping with her, especially since he was never known for his safe … _dating_ … practices, but that's different.)

"Addison." Derek takes her arm when she starts to turn away, lowering his voice. "I think you can give me a little … leeway here."

"Leeway." Her eyes widen. He doesn't specify; he doesn't need to.

 _Because of Mark._

"You forgave me," she repeats dully, "so I forgive you. Ad infinitum. Is that how it works?"

He shakes his head. "Do you have to make it sound so terrible?"

"I'm not making it sound like anything."

"Compromise, Addie. It's not a dirty word."

"Not for every couple, maybe."

He sighs. "Marriage is a give and take … remember that?"

"You want to go back to couples therapy?"

"I think he fired us," Derek says, and she has to fight down a smile. Sometimes, she wouldn't mind firing the two of them, except she's one of them.

Which makes it complicated.

She and Derek … are complicated.

Can she blame him for wanting _easy_ with Meredith Grey?

And for not feeling so great about seeing it crash and burn?

"Okay," she says, not quite meeting his eyes.

"Okay," he repeats. He's still holding her arm, his palm warm through the fabric of her sleeve. His thumb rubs over the material as if he's familiarizing himself; he's used to seeing her in sleeveless, too. Feeling her skin. She reminds herself that everything she's felt, he feels too.

Or is it that everything he feels, she feels too?

 _Except backwards, and in heels?_

"Addie."

She looks at him.

"Want to dance?"

Her eyes widen. It's one thing for him to agree, but to initiate?

There's only one way to respond.

"Love to," she says, and they exchange a smile.

..

 _It's okay,_ she tells herself, in time to the music.

 _One-two-three, it's-okay, it's okay, one-two-three, it's okay._

Derek's hand is warm against the small of her back. He's leading, turning her gently one way and the other so they always end up back in the same spot. She surrenders control, loving it.

 _One-two-three, he loves me_ …

No, that might be stretching it, after today.

 _One-two-three-four, does-not-hate-me_ , except this is a waltz and all the petals she's been tossing here and there and everywhere since they started trying to reconcile feel like they're coming back to lodge in her throat.

And choke her.

She coughs a little, clearing her throat.

"You okay, Addie?"

 _I'm okay, one-two-three, I'm okay, one-two-three._

"I'm fine."

"Good."

He gives her a little squeeze and she'd enjoy it, _bask_ in it even, except he's turned her a bit with that embrace so that she can see that directly across from them – right in Derek's previous eyeline – Meredith Grey is dancing with the vet, her arms wrapped around his neck.

In direct line of site from the spot on which they've been revolving – ever so slightly – since they started to dance.

Which would fix his gaze directly on Meredith.

… and not on her at all.

"Addison," he says quietly.

"No, forget it. It's fine. It's great." She steps back into his arms and holds onto him tensely, like she recalls from her grammar school dancing class days when the assembled children of privilege gripped each other like so many lifebuoys to stay afloat on the dance floor.

"Addie."

"We're dancing," she says, hating that her voice trembles.

"I know we're dancing," he says quietly next to her ear.

The music is loud; they have to press close to each other to talk, and so it is that they're full-on embracing, swaying slightly from side to side, as their words grow more heated.

"And you also know Meredith and Finn are dancing."

"Addison."

"And you're looking at them."

" _Addison._ "

"You're looking at them. You're looking at _her_." Addison's voice shakes now and she doesn't bother to control it. "I thought you were – that _we_ were dancing, Derek."

"We were!"

"No. You were looking at Meredith and I was dancing. I was dancing with you, but you weren't dancing with me." She feels tears fill her eyes. Damn the hormones. She pushes at her husband's grip. "Let go of me."

"Addie, don't do this. We _were_ dancing. You and I. Meredith has nothing to do with this."

"Meredith has everything to do with this!" she hisses. "Meredith has been – everything, all day, since this morning! Your walks, and Finn, and now you're looking at her – "

"I am not _looking_ at her, Addison, I was actually looking at _you_!"

She rears back, livid, raising her voice. "Oh, congratulations! Do you want a medal, Derek, for actually bothering to look at your _pregnant wife?_ "

The music's stopped; her words echo through the atrium.

Her last words.

 _Your pregnant wife._

Because of course the music stopped.

And of course everyone in the room is looking at her.

And of _course_ , to make it even better, she's drawn back on her heels indignantly, the hand on her hip pulling the loose fabric of her skirt and leaving nothing about the pregnant shape of her lower belly to the imagination.

Fuck _._

 _Fuck._

She hears him calling her name, but it's too late.

She spins on one heel and stalks out of the room before she has to comprehend the consequences.

..

"Addison!"

She's fast – faster on those damned spiked heels than anyone should be. She disappears between couple after couple until he loses sight of her.

He calls her name again, fruitlessly.

Somehow the room is full of swarming people blocking his way; he can hear them, _did you hear? Did you hear what Addison Shepherd just said?_

Great. This is just what they need.

"Derek!"

He turns at the sound of his name.

"Chief." He sighs. "Look, I need to find Add – "

"Give her a little space," Richard suggests. He spreads his hands expansively. "If the last two days have taught me anything, it's that women don't like to be surprised at the prom."

Derek gives him a curious look. "What do you mean?"

"The important thing is, you're going to be a father." Richard's eyes are warm, swimming with some kind of emotion he can't quite identify, even if the dim-sparkly lights of the atrium. As he has in the past, he skates over the question he's apparently not planning to answer. "A father! That _is_ what I just heard, rather loudly, along with the rest of the guests?"

Slowly, Derek nods.

"Well. Congratulations are in order, then." Richard rests a hand on his shoulder. "You deserve this," he says.

Derek nods weakly.

It's a nice thing to say, a platitude.

So why does it sound more like an indictment, and less like a benediction?

..

She has to get away.

She has to _go._

Addison doesn't actually know where she's going, except that she has to get out of there – she's warm, overly warm, and she can still feel all those eyes on her like a swarm of beestings. The humiliation, the crawling feeling of the secret everyone knows now. The way they all saw her: something pitiful. A disgrace, someone to mock. To think this was going to be her _better_ prom. Her teenaged self laughs at her too, inside her head. As if she deserves anything better.

She's desperate for solitude as her eyes well up with tears she's fairly certain she won't be able to hold back this time, finally pushing open the door of the first exam room that catches her eye.

"Oh, sorry – "

But she's not alone.

* * *

 _To be continued. It's not SGH Prom without some total and utter chaos, and I'm sure some of you sensed this coming. There's a LOT that just happened - a lot tumbling around - and a lot more is coming. The good news: Chapter 15 is basically done and will be posted next QPQ Sunday. Thank you again for reading - I appreciate every single one of you, and appreciate every piece of kind feedback I've received. You've been truly generous. And it's been a LONG and stressful few weeks so, hell, I'll take your awesomeness and appreciate it even more than usual. Now that QPQ Sundays are back, it's off to work on more of my WIPs. Thanks again for your patience and pretty please, review and let me know what you think!_


	15. Blue Ones

_***** Thanks to the anonymous reviewer who asked:** if you want to see **the blue dress** , Kate Walsh wore it to the 13th Annual Premiere Women in Hollywood Awards in 2006. Googling that should give you the visual, if you're so inclined! *******_

 _ **A/N: Thank you for your very generous reviews and for reading and commenting and just being awesome. Happy Sunday and please enjoy this early QPQ chapter (early as in it's 10:45 a.m., on the correct day, but still)! It picks up right where the last one left off, with Addison walking in on a non-empty exam room after she flees the dance floor of the hospital prom ...**_

* * *

 ** _Blue Ones  
_**

 _.._

 _Gestational Age: twelve weeks, one very long day  
Plum-Sized Baby: is attending his very first prom  
_ _Baby's First Prom: a little on the stressful side  
Baby's Parents/Prom Dates: probably not on speaking terms  
_ _Seattle Grace Hospital is: way too small  
_ _This Blue Dress: pretty epic, but a dress can only go so far  
Hormones: remain a bitch_

..

* * *

She goes for the doorknob again on instinct, about to leave, and then pauses, glancing at the room's only other occupant: a woman slumped against the exam table holding a crumpled tissue. She's dressed formally in a long dress – another prom refugee, it seems, and from the tissues not-very-hygienically lined up on the counter, she's been in here crying for more than a few minutes.

"Dr. … Torres." Addison starts hesitantly, as she recognizes her. "Are you – are you all right?"

"Callie," the other woman says. "And … more or less." She dabs at her eyes.

"Callie. Right. I'm, uh, I'm more or less too." She smiles shakily. "And I'm Addison."

"I knew that." Callie gives her a watery sort of a smile. "Everyone knows who you are."

"Yeah." Addison leans back against the door. "I guess they do."

Neither speaks for a moment.

"So how come you left the … prom, or whatever it is?" Callie asks.

"I ... needed some air," Addison says.

They both look around the small, windowless exam room.

"The prom does kind of suck," Callie offers.

Addison nods. "Most do."

"Not for everyone." Callie twists the tissue in her hands. "Not for … perfect people. Like your perfect husband."

"Mine?" Addison's eyes widen. "Perfect … now, maybe. But he wasn't born a brain surgeon. His prom was a long time ago. His prom was – " She stops talking, picturing fondly the photographs she's seen, at least one of which she squirreled away when her mother-in-law was distracted. God, she loves those terrible pictures. "He had frizzy hair," she says finally.

Callie looks unimpressed.

"I've seen his prom pictures, is my point." Addison walks further into the room to set down her little evening bag, then turns to Callie. "I have blackmail."

 _Like in all the best marriages._

Callie looks like she's considering this, while Addison perches against the high stool in the corner. Almost unconsciously, she rest a hand over the silk-covered bump she can feel through her blue dress. Was she fooling herself, hiding it? Was she fooling anyone?

But when she looks up, Callie is staring at her, eyes wide.

"Ooh," she breathes. "You're – "

" – pregnant." Addison nods. "Yeah. You're, uh, you're the last to find out, I guess, since I just told everyone at the prom."

"You did?"

"Not on purpose."

Callie just looks at her for a moment. "Do you know what you're having?" she asks.

Addison nods again. "A Shepherd," she says. "I'm having a Shepherd, which explains the moodiness and the … and everything else."

Callie doesn't say anything.

"I'm _here_ ," Addison gestures around the exam room. "Because I'm pregnant with a Shepherd, and nobody knew, except now everyone knows, and my prom date … I don't think my prom date is over Meredith Grey."

She tries to make the last part sound humorously rueful instead of just … sad.

"Must be something going around," Callie muses. "Because I don't think my prom date is over her either."

"Yours," Addison repeats. Her eyes widen as she recalls who she saw Callie dancing with earlier. "O'Malley? Really?"

Callie nods. "He barely even glanced at me tonight."

Addison skims her eyes over Callie, who's wearing a low-cut black dress that shows off tanned curves. "Then he's an idiot," she says.

Callie laughs, sniffling a little. "You have to say that."

"I really don't."

"It's girl code," Callie points out.

Addison shrugs. "You're a resident," she says. "So girl code doesn't include – "

The door opens again.

 _Oh, you have got to be kidding me._

..

"Addison," Derek says into the phone as he walks away from her locked office, keeping his voice low as he passes a group of nurses. "You're not in your office or the lounge and your car is still here. You can at least give me the courtesy of telling me where you are, and if you're okay."

He pauses.

An unwelcome flashback is nudging at the corners of his mind.

 _Derek, I know you hate me, I get it, but please, just tell me where you are. I just want to know where you are, and if you're okay. I'm sorry, okay? I'm so sorry._

Her voice quivering over his machine, for days.

 _Please, Derek, just tell me where you are. Please. I'm sorry._

There was one message where all she did was cry and he wondered, briefly, if she had meant to hang up or if the message – just under two and a half minutes of quiet weeping, he timed it – was intentional.

"… I'm sorry," he says into the phone. "I'm sorry, Addie, okay? Just – call me and tell me where you are."

He snaps the phone shut, angry with both of them.

Where the hell is she?

..

Meredith Grey stands in the open doorway, eyes wide, long hair a bit mussed, her black dress sweeping the linoleum floor.

"Hi," she says slowly, a bit of a question mark at the end of the lengthened syllable. "I … didn't know anyone was in here."

"… Hi." Addison tries to keep the sarcasm out of her greeting. It's not Meredith's fault that – what? That her life is a mess?

She ticks off those messes, none of which she can attribute to the woman standing in front of them now, looking no more thrilled at this awkward run-in than she feels:

 _Mess #1: All of Seattle Grace knows she's pregnant now._ Not Meredith's fault. Arguably Derek's fault, and Addison's own fault, and certainly the DJ's unwitting fault for turning off the music at the worst possible moment. Fine.

 _Mess #2: Derek's reaction to Meredith's new boyfriend._ Boyfriend might be pushing it, as a term, come to think of it. Then again, she brought the vet to prom, so they must at least be … going steady? Pinned? _God_ , she's getting old. But Derek's reaction isn't Meredith's fault. Derek's reaction is Derek's fault, and as for her reaction to _his_ reaction, well –

 _Mess #3: Addison's completely understandable reaction to Derek's reaction to Meredith's new boyfriend/vetfriend._ Excuse her for not wanting to watch her husband bare his teeth at their Campbell's Soup kid of a vet while they played tug-of-war with Meredith's attention. She's upset enough to mix every metaphor she knows, because – he's supposed to be over her. Isn't he? He's not supposed to care. Not like that.

 _Mess #4: Addison's aborted forgiveness of Derek following the revelation of his adulterous dog-walking habit._ She was going to forgive him. She did forgive him – he looked good, bad tux aside, and he smelled good. Derek always smells good. And he asked her to dance and she was _happy_ , for a moment, to be in his arms, secret pregnancy and all, to feel his body against hers and the scruff on his cheek where he rested his head against hers. Their hands folded together over his heart. All those points of contact that sent little pulses of warmth through her. Forgiveness. He wasn't supposed to mess it up: that one's on him.

 _Mess #5: Everything she still hasn't told him – everything, everything, everything_ … is her oh god, it's her fault for saying _aborted_ , for recognizing Derek deserved her forgiveness when he accepted her lukewarm admission that she and Mark had more sex than just that one terrible night he caught them. But there's the rest of it all, the mess of it all, that he doesn't know and every week, every _day_ their child develops it's getting harder. Not easier. And that's no one's fault but hers.

 _Mess #6: The baby who never asked for any of this._ Except the baby's not a mess. The baby is perfect, and the baby deserves better, and the baby is both of theirs. The baby is both of _them_ and she desperately hopes he'll get the best and not the worst of them. That he'll be the parts of his parents who used to encourage and support and inspire each other. Challenge instead of provoke, communicate instead of antagonize … well, they always antagonized each other a little. But for sport, not war: that's the difference.

 _Mess #7: Everything they left behind._ From the literal mess in the brownstone that night to the figurative one, every friend and relative and business partner left open-mouthed with questions about their out-of-character cross-country move and the silence that followed. Messy … very messy. She picked up a ruined silk blouse the next morning, early enough that no one except the garbagemen and a few ambitious joggers would see her shame, and the tracks of dirt and rain looked far too much like her own miserable, mascara-streaked face. She bundled everything into plastic bags and tied them up on the curb because That's What You Do and it was already unseemly enough, her swollen eyes and finger-tangled hair. That one was her fault. Mostly. Well, hers and his.

 _Mess #8: Everything they brought with them._ Aka: their marriage. Everything else is related to it but hell, she'll give the marriage its own entry. It's messy enough to deserve it. Too much love to leave each other and too much history to throw away and too much hurt on both sides to let anything lie and too many secrets and too much perception and sixteen years. Sixteen? Her whole life. Derek is sewn up into the fabric of her by now and she's been _AddisonAndDerek_ too long to be anything else. She was 22 years old the first time she met him. She was a _baby_ , like he was, and everything that happened between them from that first electric moment two decades ago when their fingers brushed reaching for a ten-blade to the last moment tonight when their fingers brushed as she pulled her hand away from his on the dance floor … is on them. Their fault.

"I'm sorry," Meredith says quietly. Like she's read her mind, just … read it wrong.

"It's not your fault, Meredith," she sighs.

Callie is looking from one of them to the other with interest. Based on the general hospital reaction to the unfortunate triangle her arrival in Seattle introduced … there are probably people who'd pay to watch this conversation. So she's heartened by Callie's next question.

"Should I go?" she asks.

"No," Meredith and Addison say in unison, and it's enough for each of them to smile a little, to break the tension.

There's a moment of silence.

"Everyone knows I'm pregnant," Addison volunteers.

"Everyone knows _I'm_ … whatever I am. I don't know what I am," Meredith says thoughtfully. "Stupid."

"You're not stupid."

"Stupid enough to sleep with a married attending."

"You didn't know he was married," Addison reminds her, fairly.

"Fine, then he's stupid too." Meredith glances at Callie. "Boys are _stupid_."

"Can't argue with that." Callie lifts an eyebrow, then frowns at Meredith. "Wait, are you – "

" – drunk?" Addison finishes.

"No. I'm not _drunk._ " Meredith frowns.

Addison and Callie exchange a glance. Meredith's brow is furrowed … not quite evenly.

"It's a high school prom," Addison says. "Where did you even – the punch wasn't spiked, was it?"

Memories of rose bushes and vomit are not what she needs right now.

"No," she says after a second, answering her own question, "I'd know if it were spiked."

Because she'd feel a lot better right about now.

"It's not a high school prom, it's a _hospital prom_ ," Meredith corrects her, "which isn't actually a thing."

"Can't argue with that," Callie says again, and Addison nods.

"And I can be … not drunk," Meredith continues. "I'm not on call because I'm on suspension because of … you know … and my boyfriend and my – _ex-_ boyfriend – sorry," she adds, glancing at Addison, who waves a hand. "Anyway, my boyfriend and my ex-boyfriend are being all weird and everyone is talking about what Addison said before she – " Meredith stops talking again. "Sorry," she tells Addison gravely.

"It's fine."

"You're nice." Meredith smiles at her. "You're nicer than I would be."

"I don't think that's true," Addison says honestly. "You were pretty nice about the whole – " she gestures toward the billowy part of her dress.

"Oh. Yeah, I guess I was." Meredith pauses, her expression pensive, then points a finger in both other women's direction. "But my point is … I'm not drunk."

Callie and Addison exchange a glance.

"My _point_ is, everyone is being weird. Including George." Now Meredith glances at Callie. "Sorry," she says again.

Callie shrugs. "It's true. He is being weird."

"It's my fault," Meredith announces. "All of the weirdness is my fault. George being weird. Derek being weird. Finn being weird." Now she lowers her voice conspiratorially. "Sleeping with me … makes guys _weird._ "

"You slept with O'Malley?" Addison's eyes widen.

"Only a little," Meredith frowns, then glances in Callie's direction. " … sorry."

Addison considers what she knows – more than she'd like to – about the dynamics of her husband's ex-girlfriend (a phrase she's startlingly getting used to) and the other interns. "Stevens?" she asks, hesitantly.

Meredith wrinkles her nose. "Ugh. No. They're basically siblings."

Addison nods.

"I didn't mean to sleep with him. It was an accident." Meredith glances at Callie, then at Addison. "And, um, it did _not_ go well. I shouldn't have slept with him."

"Yeah, we've all been there." Addison sighs a little. "Meredith?"

The intern looks up, her eyes hazy.

"How, uh, how _not drunk_ are you?"

Meredith considers this. "Cristina has a flask," she says slowly. "Cristina has a flask, and the flask has tequila, and I had some of it, and … yeah. That's what happened." Now she turns to Callie. "I need to find Finn."

"… okay," Callie says, her brow furrowed a little.

"Finn is her boyfriend," Addison supplies.

"Finn is my boyfriend," Meredith echoes, then looks at Addison. "He is?"

Addison shrugs neutrally.

"I guess he is. Finn has _plans_ ," Meredith says. "He has plans. And he's not married," she adds darkly. "I checked."

"… sorry," Addison says, wincing a little.

Because Derek driving across the country and picking up a girl in a bar and not quite telling her the truth about his marriage?

She can acknowledge that one's pretty much on her.

Meredith looks like she gets it, but just then a loud rapping on the door interrupts before she can say anything.

The door opens without ceremony, revealing two tuxedo'd and not-particularly-thrilled looking men.

..

Derek blinks, not speaking. This is the fourth exam room they opened once they decided to start searching. He wasn't really expecting to find Addison in any of them, but even if so –

He definitely wasn't expecting … whatever this is.

What is _this_ , anyway?

Addison, Meredith, and an ortho resident he's met once or twice in passing, apparently deep in conversation, all in formal prom wear and propped in various levels of lounging against the counters of the small room?

"Addison," he says when no one else seems inclined to speak. "I've been looking for you."

Before she can respond, Derek hears someone skidding up behind him, and turns –

"George?" Torres asks, sounding incredulous.

"I, uh, I was kind of following these guys," O'Malley says ruefully.

Finn looks puzzled. "Why didn't you say something?"

"Because he was opening doors." O'Malley points at Derek. "And _he_ can open doors. He's an attending. And you're a – I don't know what you are, but you look like you can open doors too."

"Thank you," Finn says.

Derek tries hard not to roll his eyes.

"But I'm an intern and I can't open doors," O'Malley finishes. He turns to Torres, apparently distracted by her. "I need to talk to you."

"No," Torres says.

"Callie … it's important." O'Malley's face reaches something like _simpering_ and Derek winces.

Then he sighs, not quite sure what … prom antics he's stepped into. He's trying to catch Addison's eye, to do the thing where he gauges how mad she is at him, except she's doing the thing where she looks everywhere but at him … which is making it tricky.

"Addison." He takes a tentative step forward.

"Meredith." Finn takes a step forward as well.

" _George._ "

They all turn to see yet another surgeon attempting to get into the already-crowded exam room – well, a surgeon-in-training, anyway. It's Yang, who gives him a none too friendly look – she hasn't seemed particularly fond of him since the denouement of his relationship with Meredith and he can't exactly blame her.

"Meredith?" Yang adds, sounding confused. She shakes her head as if to clear it. "Okay, you know what, I don't actually want to know. You both just need to come with me. Now."

"Why?" Meredith asks, sounding interested.

Yang frowns. "Are you drunk?"

"No! And," Meredith lowers her voice, "it was _your_ flask."

"That flask was for emergencies," Yang hisses.

"This _was_ an emergency!" Meredith protests. "They were being _weird._ " She points at the three men lined up on one side of the exam room, facing off with the three women.

It's Derek's turn to frown now. Weird?

"They're always weird," Yang says dismissively.

"Excuse me."

Yang ignores him. "Meredith … you need to come now."

"What's wrong?" O'Malley looks nervous. "Cristina?"

Torres is looking from one of them to the other. O'Malley reaches for her hand and Derek watches as she permits it.

Impatiently, Yang sizes up the room one last time. " _Fine_ , you come too, Tor – Callie. Whatever. Just – all of you, you need to come now. It's Izzie."

That's all she has to say – the last two words – and the room is cleared of interns and its lone resident.

Until it's just Derek, Finn, and Addison.

..

"What was that all about?" Finn asks, sounding a little puzzled … but pleasant enough. He always seems pleasant enough.

"Long story," Derek says.

"If you'll excuse me." Addison's posture is as haughty as her tone as she starts to push between them.

Derek catches her arm.

"Actually – why don't you stay." Then he glances pointedly at Finn. "Maybe _you_ could … " He clears his throat.

"Oh. Sure." Finn glances at the door. "I can just – "

"Yes, that sounds like a good idea."

Derek gives the other man a wave goodbye with his free hand, then closes the door and leans against it.

"I don't want to talk to you," Addison announces.

Derek sighs. "Yes. You made that pretty clear with your grand exit from the dance floor."

She's studiously avoiding his gaze. "I'm so sorry I _embarrassed_ you," she says, her voice tight.

"You didn't embarrass me."

She looks up, raising an eyebrow.

"Fine, you embarrassed me."

"Well, I embarrassed myself more!"

"I'm not complaining," Derek says patiently.

Something flickers in her eyes. "You're not?"

"No. I mean, I don't think you actually intended to tell everyone in the hospital about the baby."

She exhales a mirthless sort of laugh. "No. I didn't." She looks at him again. "Meredith says everyone was talking about it."

He doesn't try to deny it. "Everyone's always talking about something," he offers.

"Great." She shakes her head.

"Addison."

"What?"

He opens his mouth to say, _I wasn't looking at Meredith_ , but he's not sure how to speak the words in a way that sounds sincere. The fact that they're true doesn't feel like it matters right now and he's not sure why.

"… you didn't pick up your phone," he says finally.

She glances toward the little purse sitting on the chair in the corner of the room. So she wasn't ignoring him on purpose.

 _Not like you did_ , says a small internal voice, but he brushes it off: that was markedly different.

"Are you okay?" he asks instead.

She shrugs a little. "Everyone knows now," she says, a bit hesitantly, as if she hasn't quite decided to believe it.

"Maybe not everyone," Derek allows.

"Everyone in the room."

"… everyone in the room," he admits. "So … they know you're pregnant," he adds carefully.

"And they know you were looking at Meredith Grey."

"I'm not sure they heard that part. But I did." He pauses. "And for the record, Addison …"

She raises her eyes to meet his. They're very wide and bright; she's not teared up exactly … but there's moisture shimmering on their surface. "Yes?" she says after a moment, her voice a little shaky.

"I was actually looking at you," he says.

Her mouth starts to curve upwards before she shakes her head a little at his words, leaving just a doubtful half-smile on her lips. She just looks at him, then sighs, rubbing at her temples with her hands.

"Headache?" he asks.

"Just the usual." She shrugs. "Derek … what are we supposed to do now?"

"Tonight, you mean?"

She nods.

"You don't want to go back to the prom?"

He's mostly teasing and she makes a face at him in response.

"I'm done with proms," she says. "Which is what I should have said when you asked me to this one."

"I'm sorry." He says it automatically, though he's not sure exactly what he's apologizing for – his reaction to Meredith and Finn's prom date? His annoyance – confusion – was it hurt? To find out that Meredith knew about his wife's pregnancy before he did. For spoiling that moment on the dance floor when she was smiling in his arms, and everything felt … good.

"Yeah. I'm sorry too." She's toying with the ends of her hair, which is all … sleek, and straight, but somehow fluffy at the same time. All that buildup of stalking around the hospital looking for her has settled into a different kind of anticipation as he watches her busily moving fingers.

"I'm not sorry I asked you, though," he says abruptly. He didn't plan it, and his cheeks color a bit when she looks up, her eyes bright.

"You're not?"

"No," he admits.

"Oh." She leans a little against the exam table, her expression faintly hopeful. She's playing with her necklace now, that familiar anxious gesture, except while he recognizes the gold pendant she's wearing, he's not used to its placement seeming so … provocative, for lack of a better term. It's a filigreed coin, the provenance of which he can't remember, and as she turns it between two manicured fingers, it settles just at the top of the space between her breasts like an invitation, exposed by the low neck of her blue dress. It's a more dramatic neckline than he would have expected, but Addison can surprise him, sartorially and in other ways, and his gaze is caught by the rise and fall of smooth flesh.

He can tell by her expression that she's caught him looking.

And that this time, she knows he was looking at her.

"What?" she asks.

"Nothing. Just, uh … this is a good dress," he says.

There's a slow smile tugging at the corners of her mobile mouth now. She's trying not to smile, and why are those the smiles that feel the most victorious?

Carefully, he takes another step toward her. The room seems smaller, somehow.

Her head is tilted up, watching him carefully as he approaches. It smells like antiseptic in here and the clashing of perfume and aftershave of the seven people who crowded in here moments ago.

"You think so?" she asks softly. Her eyes are wide with feigned modesty; it's amusing, though, and for some reason playing along is a game and not a chore.

"Oh, I know so." Slowly, his lifts a hand to touch the silky blue material at her shoulder. She inhales sharply as his fingers brush her collarbones. Taking his time, he scans the full length of the dress – such as it is – from the deep scoop neck to the high waist that lets the skirt sweep over the rounded flesh he knows is hiding underneath. His breath catches in his throat to think about it – the shape of the flesh and what it means and he finds himself swallowing hard as he forces his gaze away, down the flippy short skirt and over the alluring length of her legs, and back up again until he meets her eyes.

Hers are wide, pupils dilated, watching him carefully.

"This … is a good dress," he repeats, his voice a little throaty. "A very good dress."

For a moment they just look at each other.

"Derek?" she whispers.

"Hm?"

One of her hands floats up and touches the lapel of his jacket. " _This_ … is a bad tux."

He smiles in spite of himself. "Yeah? You'll have to take it up with my wife. She left me to my own devices." He brushes back some of her long hair, hearing the change in her breathing when he rests his palm against her neck.

"Really." Addison tilts her head, moving her own hand now to rest against his chest. "Seems … short-sighted of her."

His free hand skates down to her silk covered waist. "She had her reasons," he says, and the movement of her soft flesh when she draws breath to smirk is enough to overcome whatever hesitation he had left; he covers the minimal space between them, the hand on her neck sliding down to pull her close.

She melts against him at first and then pushes him away, both hands on his chest. His lips are still tingling from the pressure of hers. "What?" he murmurs, pressing a kiss to the side of her neck when she doesn't respond, brushing his mouth against her delicate collarbone.

"This doesn't make everything okay," she warns him.

He pulls back. "Noted," he says, and then she's back in his arms before he can blink, her body so warm and pliant it's hard to believe she's the same person who stalked away from him on the dance floor, her eyes as ice-cold as her words. Now her skin is hot enough to burn as he lifts her onto the table, his hands skimming up the familiar lengths of her thighs as she draws him closer.

"This is – we shouldn't do this here," she pants at one point, and he doesn't respond because his face is buried in the soft flesh that's been calling to him since he first spotted the uncharacteristic dress.

He tilts his head back finally, her fingers tangled in his hair, and her eyes look bleary enough that he can't believe she's suggesting it. "You want to stop?" he asks.

She just pulls him closer in response, her powerful legs answering for her.

Just as he thought.

And then all rational thought leaves him because she's pulling him even closer, the heat of her insistent and demanding and he's pulling at the top of her dress – she's helping him, and her hands are covering his, _it's okay,_ she says, seeing he's trying to be careful, _it doesn't hurt._ His lips roam over her flesh uncertainly, but _it feels good_ , she says. _I promise._

And then everything else disappears.

..

"That was a bad idea," Addison says, catching her breath, trying to find what's left of her dignity along with her – "panties," she adds. "I had panties. Blue ones."

"Blue ones," he repeats, sounding dazed.

"Dark blue." And a little skanky too, but who's counting? Turns out the shopping in Seattle isn't as bad as she'd feared. The only issue is that they still have to go back out in public.

They haven't done this in a while.

The _after_.

She combs her fingers through her mussed hair. So much for her rage blowout. So much for her _rage_ , come to think of it. She's forgot how much this kind of making up can solve, even if the fight isn't completely –

"Thank you," she says hastily when she sees what he's holding out, snatching the scraps of lace out of his fingers and then accepting his hand on her back to keep her balance while she scrambles back into them.

Her husband, for his part, looks quite satisfied with himself – _of course he does –_ and somehow her finger marks in his hair only make it look more perfect.

 _Of course they do._

She smooths his hair down anyway, holding onto him a little longer than necessary.

"We're too old for this," she tells him, feeling the heat of his palms against her hips, trying not to let the twinkle in his eye go directly to her heart.

"And yet … we just did it. At the very age we are now." His smirk tells her all she needs to know. "So by definition … we're not too old for this."

"And everyone is going to know. _And_ it's a high school prom." She shakes her head.

"People have sex at high school proms all the time, Addison."

"Yeah, high schoolers! Not the – chaperones."

"Is that what we are? Chaperones?"

"If so, we're not very good ones." She tugs at the shoulders of her dress. "Do I look okay?"

"You look – "

He doesn't get to finish the sentence because the door bangs open and they jump apart as if they've been caught doing something wrong.

It's just Richard, who looks from one of them to the other, his normally impassive voice registering surprise.

"Chief," Derek says, glancing at Addison. "We were just – "

"Yes, I'm sure you were," he interrupts drily, shaking his head. "But we'll have to deal with that later. There's an issue."

"An issue?" Derek is still buttoning his tux jacket when Richard gestures impatiently out of the exam room and they both follow behind him.

"Richard?" Addison walks faster to catch up. "What is it?"

"It's the interns," he says grimly.

"The interns?" She exchanges a confused glance with Derek.

"The interns," Richard repeats. His dark eyes are serious, but there's warmth behind them when he rests a hand on her shoulder. "Oh, and Addie … congratulations. When there's time, we can – but it's good news. It's wonderful news."

"Right. You, uh, you heard." Addison glances at her husband, who gives her a helpless sort of nod.

"Oh, I'd say everyone heard. Not really the sort of atmosphere I was anticipating, but I think I'll allow it this once." Richard smiles ruefully at her, and then his face drops again as they round the corner and Addison realizes what he meant when he said _the interns._

… apparently the party's over.

..

"Derek … what do you think will happen to Stevens?"

He glances at his wife. She insisted they go outside – it's chilly, but he's dutifully following her up to the deck nonetheless.

He waits until they're settled against the rail to answer her. "I don't know."

She's quiet again for long pensive moments as more passengers board the ferry and the long, mournful sound of the horn fills the air.

The wind picks up as they wait for the boat to pull out. It's not cold, exactly, but there's something in the air. She shivers a little and he rests his hands on her arms, rubbing gently to warm her. "And here I thought you wouldn't need my jacket, for once." He indicates the long sleeves of her dress.

"Who says I do?" she asks, a little defensive, and when his gaze slides over the part of her that's not covered by the top of the dress he can't help smirking. It's a veritable flashback to their encounter in the exam room.

"I wish you didn't," he says, "because it really spoils the look." But he shrugs out of his jacket, resting it over her shoulders, then makes a show of pulling the front of it together and she apparently has to work harder not to smile.

"Better?" he asks innocently.

"My legs are still cold," she points out.

"You want me to give you my pants too?"

"Very funny."

She leans back against him and he rests his hands on her hips, slightly amused, privately, at the rather … _prom_ -like posture they've adopted. He holds on as the engine roars to life and when she speaks it's hard to hear her over the splash of the water while they speed up.

"… I hope she's okay."

"Stevens?" he asks, leaning closer to make sure he heard correctly.

He feels her pause, then nod against him.

"Everyone knows," Derek says slowly. "It's not a secret now, what she did. Maybe that's better."

"You think?"

"I don't know," he admits. "It can't been easy to keep it from everyone. Richard was – " he stops talking; it's getting hard to hear over the wind again.

She surprises him by turning in his arms and resting her head against his shoulder. He wraps his arms around her – it's chilly in the rapidly moving air, but she doesn't seem eager to go inside and truth be told he's not really either.

They're still standing that way when the ferry docks with a thud at Bainbridge.

..

A lingering sadness clings as they drive from the ferry terminal to the trailer. They don't talk much; Addison holds the edges of the bad tux jacket close around her and watches the streetlights disappear into darkness. The bad tux jacket isn't really so bad, not like this, when it's warm from her husband's body and smells like him too. It's comforting, even.

She's tired, moving on autopilot as she piles her hair on her head with a clip and showers as quickly as she can, brushing her teeth with a faintly shaking hand before she finally curls in bed beside her husband.

He's been waiting for her, apparently. "What's wrong, Addie?" he asks without looking at her.

"Everyone knows," she sighs, and her hand tracing the curve of her belly leaves no doubt what she means.

"Everyone knows," he repeats, a mirror of their conversation in the exam room. His hands are folded behind his head; he's still staring at the ceiling. "Is that so bad?"

She considers it.

"No … I guess it isn't."

"Look at it this way." He turns now to give her a familiar smile, one part rueful to two parts relieved. "Everything's out in the open. No more secrets. Isn't that what we wanted?"

It is … and it isn't.

The funny thing is, looking at her husband's face, that she thinks he might feel the same way.

"Derek – "

"Nuchal screen the day after tomorrow," he continues. "Then we hit the second trimester and it's all downhill from there. Isn't that what you always say?"

She just nods weakly.

"And then we can tell people. And then we can tell everyone."

"Everyone who doesn't already know, you mean," she says.

But his voice sounds – excited, boyish. He wants to tell his family, she knows this, and she's touched by it.

The thing is that this … this is the time. Now, when she has a little leverage, when her husband has been taking _walks_ with Meredith Grey, when he decided to puff up like an angry cat over his ex-girlfriend having the audacity to date someone after he chose to leave her …

This is the time to come out with it.

 _No more secrets. Isn't that we wanted?_

She starts to say his name again – her tongue is already tapping the roof of her mouth – and she's going to tell him everything, but he rolls toward her before she can speak.

"I'm tired," he admits.

"From – "

"No," he says firmly, lifting an eyebrow. "Definitely not from that."

She smiles in return. "From the prom, then?" She widens her eyes. "You can be on your feet in the OR for twelve hours, but – "

" – not if I'm dancing." He shrugs a little. "Which is why I'm a surgeon and not a Rockette."

She takes a moment to enjoy the amusing image.

"The only reason you're _not_ tired, Addie," and there's a teasing note in his voice, light and friendly, that she loves and has missed and would be stupid to sacrifice – right? – "is because you're used to spending hours in ridiculous shoes."

"They're not ridiculous." She frowns. "They're fabulous."

"I'll take your word for it." He smirks, drops a quick kiss on her lips and reaches for the light switch.

They're plunged into darkness.

"Derek?"

He must hear something in her hesitant tone because she can feel him fumbling for her hand and then his fingers closing around hers.

"What's wrong?"

 _Tell him._

"Nothing, I just – wanted to say good night."

"Good night, Addison." He sounds amused and the bed dips a little as he shifts, pulling her back against him. His arm is draped over her waist now, warm and secure, and maybe this is a good way to talk to him actually … it's dark _and_ she's facing away from him, which is a good thing because the slices of moonlight cutting into the trailer would hide very little if they were face to face. She knows his expressions that well.

She's going to tell him now.

Because it's not fair to him, and he deserves to know, and it's not fair to her, because – secrets hurt both of them. The old ones, and the new ones.

But then she feels his palm gliding over her hip, coming to rest on the little swell of her lower belly, the one everyone at Seattle Grace has seen now. The one she's going to have to start being less self-conscious about calling a _bump._

"Good night," he says quietly.

"Good night," she says, a little confused, since they've already been through this.

Derek clears his throat. "I, uh, I was actually … talking to the baby."

She swallows hard. He's not making this easy, is he?

Then again, when has either one of them made things easy?

"I know he can't hear yet," Derek adds, sounding a little embarrassed. "But … ."

His voice trails off and she can feel the trace of a shrug from behind her.

 _But he's just going to say it anyway._

His hand is still gripping her gently – it's a different touch, not mapping the contours of the bump but cradling it against his palm.

She steels herself. It's – it's not fair not to tell him just because he's being sweet. If that's what the baby brings out in him, well, that's all the more reason to be honest.

"Derek …"

"Shh," he says. "I'm trying to talk to the baby."

She laughs a little in spite of herself; his returning laugh vibrates against her. The way he's holding her she can feel everything, every movement. His hand on her belly over the child they created together and if she can finally admit it's everything she's ever wanted and if _he's_ willing to get over what she did with his best friend, then why can't they just enjoy it?

 _Because you're a liar._

Ugh, the inside of her head is so mean.

… especially when it's right.

"Derek."

She starts to turn in his arms and he helps her move the rest of the way until she's lying half in the shadow of his body, propped on his elbow. He's looking down at her with concern and what gets her is that even if not for the moonlight she'd know it was _concern_ just from the way he's breathing.

 _It's not all my fault,_ that's what she wants to say, _if you were like this the last couple of years, if you were like this before I turned to Mark, then maybe I wouldn't have …_ but that's not fair either. Not to either one of them.

She turns her face to his and he's moving some of her hair back; she can read his smile from the feeling of his thumb on her cheek.

And then his hand is moving down to her belly again.

"Good night, baby," he says, very quietly, his voice directed toward the life growing with her, gentle and filled with wonder, and –

 _Oh, for crying out loud._

… she'll just have to tell him another time.

* * *

 _To be continued next Sunday, but: thus endeth the prom do-over. Did you enjoy it? Was it better than your last hospital prom, at least? Some steps forward, some steps in place ... and if you could have told Derek the truth after he said good night to the baby, well, you're a stronger woman than Addison_ _or this writer. My BABIES. (The adult ones, but also the Sheplet.) There might be a slight time jump next chapter ... and get ready for some more people to learn the exciting news (and not accidentally, either). Thank you as always for reading and I hope you'll review and let me know what you think!_


	16. Who's on First?

**Chapter 16: Who's on First?**

 _ **A/N: Can you forgive me for missing a couple Sundays? I sure hope so. This story is never far from my mind, but RL (what's that?) has been a little crazy. And I may have had just a touch of the block ... but I think it's gone, at least for now. Thank you so much to everyone who's reviewed and checked back for an update. I hope you enjoy this one. We've had a little bit of a time jump - nothing too crazy, but hang onto your Addek hats for this super-long chapter and I hope you enjoy the ride!**_

 _ **Who's On First?**_

 _Gestational Age: Fourteen weeks, three days_  
 _Baby is the Size of a: lemon (more tangy citrus)_  
 _Odds on Baby Websites Realizing How Much Size Variety Produce Offers: slim to none, based on experience thus far_  
 _People Who Know: absolutely everyone in attendance at the hospital prom (which is not a thing)_  
 _People Who Still Don't Know: the whole east coast crowd, with the exception of Savvy  
Who to Tell First: no clue_  
 _How to Break it to Them: see previous answer_  
..

"So … I would normally give these results over the phone, as you know." Melissa nods toward Addison, who feels her stomach tighten with anxiety. Her obstetrician's office suddenly seems impossibly, unbearably small.

"Does that mean – "

"All the baby's markers are normal," Melissa assures them, resting her hands on the open chart on her desk.

Addison exhales with sheer relief.

"So you're probably wondering why I wanted to see you."

"Wondering … worrying … ." She glances at Derek, who nods encouragingly.

"All the numbers look perfect, like I said." Melissa pauses. "But. Well … it's a little – complicated."

"Complicated how?" Addison reaches automatically for her husband's hand.

Melissa steeples her fingers, looking troubled.

Addison's stomach clenches again.

"There's a problem," Melissa says slowly.

"What kind of problem?" Addison's heart is speeding up. Next to her, Derek squeezes her hand. He's trying to reassure her, she can tell.

"I think you know."

"I do?" Addison is confused.

"Of course you do. You've known all along."

She shakes her head, then glances at Derek, who looks as confused as she feels.

"Oh, come on." Melissa chuckles a little, then raises her eyebrows. "What did you think, Addison? That no one would ever find out – really?"

"I didn't – "

"You didn't think. _That_ sounds more like it. You've never been much of a thinker, have you?"

"That's not – " She turns to Derek, who looks horrified. "You have to hear me out," she implores. "You have to listen to me."

"Why should he listen to you?" Melissa asks, her tone practical. "You lied to him, didn't you? About everything?"

"Not about everything!"

"Really, Addison," Melissa says, frowning. "Living a lie is so impolite. And you're not very good at it, either."

With that, Melissa's face sours, then ages, changes, until the eyes looking at her coldly are none other than Bizzy's.

 _No._

Derek – she needs to find Derek.

She's calling for him.

He's ignoring her.

No, wait – he's calling for her too. He's calling for her too?

"Addie. Addison, wake up."

She blinks, disoriented, her husband's face slowly coming into dim focus over hers.

"I was … dreaming," she realizes.

"You were dreaming." He's propped up on an elbow, looking concerned. His free hand cups her face briefly, smooths her hair out of her eyes. "You were moaning in your sleep." He pauses. "Not in the good way."

She smiles a little in spite of herself, in spite of the chill that attached to her in the vision of Melissa's office. _It wasn't real. It wasn't real._

"What did you dream?"

His tone is almost – casual. For just a moment, she imagines telling him. _Well, honey, I dreamed all of this … all of it: you, me, the way you're looking at me right now, the baby we made … it all came crashing down on our heads because I can't figure out how to tell you the whole truth._

"I dreamed … that the Yankees were playing the Sox," she says, worrying the edge of the top sheet between her fingers. "It was the bottom of the eighth, and … well."

"Say no more." He's smiling when she looks up at him again, but there's something in his expression that makes her wonder if she's fully convinced him.

"It's still pretty early," he says, glancing at the time. "You want to try to sleep more?"

She shakes her head, shuddering off the last remnants of the dream. "I think I'm awake."

He nods, swinging his legs out of bed and heading to make coffee, stopping to rumple the fur on Doc's head.

Addison exhales. That could have been worse.

Much, much worse.

"Addie?"

She looks up at her name.

"Have you given it any more thought?"

..

She looks at him like he's just asked if she'd grown another head.

No need to specify what he meant by _it_ ; she clearly knows.

"I've given it thought," she says, busying herself with Doc, who has climbed onto the bed with some effort and a helping hand from Derek.

He joins them now, coffee in hand. "And?" he prompts.

"And I'm not ready to tell them."

"Addison."

" _Derek._ " She adopts his tone. "It's still early."

"It's not that early." He glances at his watch. "It's three hours later in New York, and I'm sure my mother wouldn't mind – oh." He looks at her expression. "You mean early in the pregnancy."

She nods.

"Second trimester," he reminds her. "You said you wanted to wait until the second trimester."

She just stares back stubbornly.

Hasn't he conceded to her every step of the way?

"First you wanted to wait until the second trimester," he reminds her, "and then you wanted to wait for the nuchal screen, and then you wanted to wait for the _second_ NIPT."

She frowns, apparently at his choice of words. "What's wrong with getting a second NIPT?"

"Nothing's wrong with it," he says quickly. Melissa called it professional privilege and said she completely understood why they were curious about gender and didn't want to wait until a visible ultrasound image.

"Do you really want to tell your mother we're having a baby of _indeterminate gender?_ " Addison asks, raising an eyebrow. "She's still not over Theo wanting to take ballet."

Derek winces a little at the memory. "She's over it," he says, a little defensive. "She went to his recitals, didn't she?"

"Only because Lizzie threatened her. And then stuck Hilary in dancing school even though she has two left feet."

Derek sighs. "Fine. So we're waiting until the second NIPT results. Which – should be ready today. Right?"

Reluctantly, she nods.

"So we can tell her today?"

"Why are you so anxious to tell her?"

"Why are you so anxious not to?" He flips it back on her, settling against the headboard and watching Doc splay himself happily between them, tail thumping the covers.

"I'm not." Addison rubs his belly gently, and they both listen to the dogs contentedly wheezy breaths. "I'm just – I don't know if we should tell her first."

He nods. "You want to tell your parents first?" he asks, trying not to sound as doubtful as he feels.

Addison laughs shortly. "Uh – no. They're definitely not first."

"You've already told Savvy," he recounts. And all of Seattle Grace knows, but he's not going to rub that in. Plus, they're talking about the east coast.

"I should … tell Nancy," Addison says, sounding uncertain. "She recommended Melissa … ." Her voice trails off. "Or Liz. I don't know."

Derek sighs a little. He can't tell how much of this is Addison's actual divided loyalty and how much is buying time. "Why don't you tell all of them?" he suggests practically. "Wait until Sunday dinner and call them on speakerphone and – "

He stops talking, Addison looking as if he's just suggested a Cesarean without anesthesia.

"Or not," he says mildly.

"If I tell Nancy, she'll tell Mom before I can."

"Even if you tell her not to?"

" _Especially_ if I tell her not to." Addison glances at him. "Not on purpose. You know, she's just – Nancy."

He does know.

Nancy and Addison hit it off immediately, years ago, and their overlapping specialties brought them even closer together. Still, Nancy is – as Addison pointed out – still Nancy.

"You could start with Kathleen," he suggests.

"She'll just – diagnose me with something." Addison takes one of Doc's paws in her hand, smiling when he pulls it back and then re-offers it playfully. They continue like this for a few moments.

"Addie," he says when she seems lost in the rhythm.

"I know. Derek, I know." She releases Doc's paw, stroking it briefly, then sighs. "Look, I want to tell them. I do. But your mom …."

"She'll be thrilled. She loves babies. She loves you."

Addison raises an eyebrow and says nothing.

"What? You think she's … carrying a grudge?"

"That's a nice way to put it."

"Addie. She knows you're here, and that we're … working it out."

Addison doesn't answer, focusing on rubbing Doc's belly, before she finally looks up. "If we do tell her – "

"When we do," he corrects.

"Fine, when." She sighs. " _When_ we tell your mother, if she's happy – "

" _When_ she's happy."

"Derek." She shakes her head. "She's going to want to – fly out here and be all … here."

"Is that so bad?"

"I don't know." Addison is back to playing with Doc's paw, to his delight. "You know how involved she was with your sisters' pregnancies, always going to every appointment and … second-guessing the lactation consultants." She shudders a little.

Derek forces himself not to smile. "I'm sure she'll have different boundaries with you."

"Derek, I love your family, I really do, but _boundaries_ isn't really something the Shepherds are good at."

"You're a Shepherd," he reminds her. The next time she releases Doc's paw he covers it instead. "And you're good at boundaries."

She accepts the compliment, then returns to fretting about his mother. "She's going to want to – go to Melissa with us and see the baby."

He nods. "And …?" he prompts gently when she doesn't continue.

"And I don't need your mother to see my huge naked stomach."

"Your stomach isn't huge."

"It will be."

"She doesn't have to go to see Melissa, or anywhere else you don't want her," he says patiently. "We can tell her not to fly out."

"You don't have to do that," she mumbles, now fussing with the silky cuffs of her pajama top.

"Addison."

"I'm _thinking_ ," she says stubbornly when she finally looks up at him. "Okay? I'm thinking about who to tell first and I'm not ready yet, Derek. I'm sorry, but I'm not."

"Fine." He tries to keep the irritation out of his tone. "Will you at least tell me when you've decided?"

 _Or tell the prenatal masseuse from the Archfield to call me?_ But he doesn't say it out loud, not this time.

"Oh, you'll be the first to know." She sounds as irritated as he feels, now, and she sweeps past him off the bed, Doc whining at her absence.

She turns around to pet him, conciliatory, and her bent posture gives him an eyeful of creamy skin when her silky pajama top dips low in front.

"Do you mind?" She's caught him looking, but she can't seem to help a pleased half-smile.

"Not at all." He pulls her down on his lap before she can get annoyed with him again, taking advantage of her good mood. She laughs until they find better uses for her lips and he thrills at the new shape of her – even her hair seems more lustrous as it spills over both of them. She brushes his hands away automatically, it seems, when they slide down to grip the curve of her belly; she relents after mere moments and any lingering hint of the morning's argument fades away. He loses himself in her, wondering for one sentimental split second how he could ever have considered it a chore to wake up beside her in this trailer.

..

 _Men are simple creatures_ – that's something Savvy used to say, and she would scold her for generalizing. After more than eleven years of marriage, though, it's hard to deny the accuracy. That very pleasant morning buys her the rest of the day without hassle about when she plans to tell everyone about the baby.

Melissa calls when Derek is in surgery and with the utmost self-control, she lets the call go and waits until they can hear the NIPT results together. The look on his face, she decides, makes it worth it.

"I told you," he beams.

"I told _you._ "

They pause across from each other at his desk, where she surprised him after his procedure.

For a moment she thinks he might spoil it by prompting her that she said she'd tell their families once they knew the gender.

But he doesn't. Nothing spoils it; they argue good-naturedly for a while about who told whom and then call a truce for a ferry ride too windy to speak or do much of anything other than look at the stars.

..

They're still on a bit of a non _-_ indeterminate gender high the next morning. In line with something new that's become habit, they wake when Doc alerts them to his dawn needs and stumble around the trailer for enough outerwear to protect them from their dog's favorite muddy paths. It's remarkable, really, how quickly that can happen. His impulsive but heartfelt goodnight to their unborn child was spontaneous, for example, the night of prom, but he hasn't missed a night since then.

"Coffee," he mumbles now, but Addison's already poured some into an insulated travel carafe, pausing for a sniff suggesting a religious experience.

"Have a sip," he offers as Doc leads them outside.

"No, it's okay … I won't want to stop at one." She sighs a little, leaning into him until they both laugh at the combined sound of too much rainproof nylon. Doc, both amused and impatient, tugs on his leash with noticeable, though less than normal, enthusiasm.

It _is_ okay. Somehow, it's okay.

Doc's reduced energy seems to match his mistress's patience for cardio – not that he'd put it that way to Addison. Still, the synchronicity has produced a new tradition of slower, closer morning walks. He hasn't been up Tiger Trail in a few weeks now, instead pacing leisurely steps along the lakefront – together, trading Doc's leash back and forth, sometimes talking and sometimes in silence.

It's oddly peaceful this misty morning. Addison looks thoughtful as she rubs a thumb along the rough loop of Doc's leash. On someone else it might indicate anxiety, but in all the years he's known his wife she's very rarely _not_ doing something with her hands. He used to think it was stealth practice – the reason why those same hands were so gifted in the OR. All those minute movements, constantly, had to build muscle strength … or coordination … or something. Later he came to see it as just another part of her.

"He seems a little less tired. Don't you think?"

Derek follows her gaze toward Doc, who is sniffing with some interest at a small muddy pile the origins of which he's not particularly keen on learning.

Truthfully, Doc seems about the same to him.

"Maybe," he says, not able to bring himself to lie but not wanting to disappoint her either.

Addison is looking toward the lake now, one hand resting on her bump. He doesn't want to make her self-conscious and just enjoys the moment for himself: for a woman who has been glaring at her reflection and daring him to comment on her weight gain, his wife seems to take a surprising amount of pleasure in mapping the contours of her new shape.

Not that he's complaining.

Doc barks, pawing the ground and then turning expectant eyes toward both his humans.

"What is it?" Derek asks rhetorically, crouching down to scratch his ears; Doc pants appreciatively.

When he stands up, Addison is looking at him. "What?" he asks, in a different tone this time – Addison, at least lately, is far more likely to answer him when he poses a question.

Then she's fiddling with Doc's leash again, not meeting his eyes. Drawing her out is a skill he used to have, a learned one, and one at which he once excelled. He is certain now of only two things: that he can't do it the way he used to, and that he must be better at it than he would have been a few months ago. A few months before he knew.

Still, these things take time.

And while there's something about these morning walks that makes it feel like they have nothing but time – the vastness of the land, maybe, or the lightness of the air before the deeper humidity sets in – they do both need to get ready for work.

He only has to glance at his watch for her to realize the same thing, calling to Doc and starting the process of walking all three of them back to the trailer. She tucks a hand in his arm as they trek through the muddy grass, Doc making sure to pause at regular intervals to splatter the maximum amount of sludge on both of them.

It's fine – they shed rubber boots and outerwear on the porch like second skin; if Doc is disappointed that his hard-earned mud doesn't follow them back into the trailer, he doesn't show it. He's unquestionably tired, head drooping appreciatively near the fresh bowl of water Derek sets out, pausing to pet his thick, wiry fur. Addison's troubled expression is more than just procrastinating telling their families about the pregnancy.

"I think he looks better," she says above him.

He looks up.

Addison is wrapped in her green robe now, long hair damp down her back. Doc lifts his head in her direction where a few weeks ago he might have pounced instead. Still, he eats with vigor if less speed than his peak.

Her face is set, a little stubborn; he concentrates on hoisting himself up, getting more coffee started, getting himself ready for work.

They can't get ready for anything, though, without crossing paths over and over; when they're getting along, it's amusing, and sometimes even better than that. When they're not, when they weren't – the trailer was a claustrophobic series of minefields. Now, as she passes him with hairbrush in hand, turning slightly to the side, he smiles at her. She makes a face at him in return, probably assuming – correctly – that he was noticing the bump where their baby is growing.

"Do you think it's noticeable?" she asks, a loaded question if he's ever heard one. She's turned now in profile to the mirror, smoothing her hands over the curve of her lower belly. Certainly, it's noticeable like this, when she pulls her blouse taut.

"I don't need new clothes," she says, and her expression is so serious he doesn't even tease her the way he would have in the past, _that's the first time I've ever heard you say those words._ "Not yet, anyway," she's continuing, "Nancy didn't – "

She stops talking.

"Go ahead," she says, sighing.

"Go ahead with what?"

"You know what." She releases the fabric of her shirt and the shape of it – ruffles or something – harmonizes enough that her bump isn't immediately obvious. "Take advantage of my saying _Nancy_ to remind me that I still haven't decided who we're telling first. Go ahead – you know you want to."

"I don't want to take advantage," he says, though it's growing difficult to train his vision away from the line of her ruffled blouse. She follow his gaze and rolls her eyes.

"Really, Derek?"

"It's a nice shirt," he protests.

She's a little huffy, but lets him rest his hands on the waist of the shirt, where the ruffled material dips along the curves of her body. She can't seem to decide whether she welcomes or dreads these physical changes and he's been trying to take her lead, reminding himself that his own excitement should be secondary.

The shirt, though …

"No." She swats his hand down.

"Still tender?" he asks sympathetically.

"No. But we have to go to work."

She can't seem to help laughing at his obvious disappointment.

..

She's not buying maternity clothes yet.

She doesn't need to.

Nancy would defend her decision, she's certain – and if some of her shirts and dresses pull too much at the edges of her body, then she'll just choose others. Like this blouse, with its strategically placed ruching.

Nancy would understand.

And then she hears Derek in her head, _then why can't we just tell her?_

Because it's not that simple … okay?

She's put thought into who they should tell first.

Lots of thought.

Lots of unproductive thought, and is that really so surprising, considering the list?

 **One** _ **.**_ _Nancy._ The obvious choice, the sister with whom she shares an overlapping specialty, and the experienced mother of five Shepherd offspring. And Nancy's great. Nancy is really, really great. Nancy is the obvious choice. Except Nancy knows her well, well enough that they saw each other in New York those two months, more than once, except Nancy doesn't know what she was actually doing. There are already too many secrets, too much stress around who knows and doesn't know what. So, no. Nancy's not the one. …plus, she only gained twelve pounds with her first pregnancy and based on her half-Derek baby's insistence on caloric breakfasts, Addison is well on her way to tripling that by the time she's done.

 **Two.** _Kathleen._ Kathleen is great too. In her Kathleen way. Fine, Kathleen would probably diagnose the baby with some kind of in-utero personality disorder and while that might be amusing in theory, Addison is already feeling self-conscious enough about their son's origins. All she needs is to hear Kathleen spouting off on _Adultery By Proxy_ or whatever she'll claim is afflicting their unborn child.

 **Three.** _Liz._ Liz has many good qualities. Liz is generous, and smart, and welcoming, and has always been kind to Addison. And Liz has six children, enough for even Carolyn Shepherd to cluck about the size of her family. Six children that Liz tends to use as proxies for her own occasionally intrusive questions, and Addison isn't sure she's ready to start another two trimesters of, "Taylor was wondering why you moved to Seattle, of all places," and "Maddie keeps asking how a woman your age can get pregnant." Or, heaven forbid, "Sam wants to know how she's smart enough to know Mark is bad news and she's only twelve, but her Aunt Addie somehow thought it was a good idea to sleep with him?"

 **Four.** _Amy._ As long as she's working her way through Derek's sisters. Amy is a non-starter. She's been head-down in a library for years now, working off the penance of her addiction. The family has been treating her like a glass figurine, afraid to get too close in case she shatters – but maybe mostly afraid of how the shattered glass would injure _them._ Amy is the smallest sister, the youngest, and possibly the most dangerous. And Addison loves her. And she knows Amy loves her back, but in addition to the whole head-down-library thing, there's the unfortunate incident where Addison forgot she'd given Amy a set of keys and a _stay here anytime_ so she never had to crash with one of her judgmental older sisters if she needed to be in New York. And Amy used her keys and Addison was there with Mark and she swore she'd never tell – and Addison is keeping plenty of her youngest sister-in-law's secrets – but see Number One: there are already enough secrets.

 **Five.** _Carolyn._ Her mother-in-law. Mother of five, grandmother of fourteen, judger of all. Addison wasn't kidding about not wanting to strip for an ultrasound in front of Derek's mother. The first time she wore a bathing suit in front of her mother-in-law, Carolyn looked at her like she was the Whore of Babylon – _you're exaggerating,_ Derek scolded her then and any time she brings it up, and sometimes, _well, it was a very small bathing suit._ Yeah – it wasn't that small. And while it may have been a string bikini, it's her favored cut because she doesn't like unsightly tan _or_ burn lines, thank you very much, and Savvy was on her side. Just because her mother-in-law thinks women should wear muumuus on the beach and get pregnant every Sunday doesn't mean she's right. And yes, Carolyn loves babies, and _you're so good with babies, all the babies love you_ , _you'll be such a good mother_ – all that pap thrown at her from the beginning that hardened into resentment. Can you blame her for not rushing to call her mother-in-law to let her know she's carrying what Carolyn is bound to see as her only, doted-on son's trap baby?

 **Six.** _Bizzy._ Pause for rueful laughter. Another pause to get a shrink on speed dial. Addison doesn't tell her mother things. In terms of marital updates, she hasn't shared anything more personal than informing Bizzy's social secretary, twelve years ago now, that Derek proposed. And even then, she winced a little, assuming her mother would find it vulgar. Bizzy had two children, this Addison knows, so she must at some point have been pregnant, but the idea of her mother pregnant – not to mention giving birth – is so bizarre she sometimes wonders if Bizzy just carried on her habit of having the staff do unpleasant tasks on her behalf.

 **Seven.** _The Captain._ Yeah … no. She's pretty sure her father has been well trained over the years to panic any time a woman says the word _pregnant._ Based on his scorecard, he's probably panicked a lot. And then there's the little matter of not having spoken to him in six years. Breaking that silence to tell him she's carrying on his much-vaunted genes? If Bizzy would be less than thrilled, the Captain probably _would_ be thrilled, from a purely evolutionary standpoint, and the prospect of that is just as unpleasant. Maybe more so.

 **Eight.** _Archer._ Her brother is on her side: of this she can be certain. But he's never really warmed up to Derek and she's fairly certain he'd be disappointed their separation didn't take. Plus Archer sees pregnancy the same way the Captain does, and any reminder of her how her brother – her earliest companion, her only ally in the cold rambling house of their shared childhood – has let their parents turn him into a blurred clone will probably serve to depress her. Archer is … Archer. He'd be happy for her, maybe, if she instructed him that that was the reaction she sought but she's not champing at the bit to do that either.

So …

Yeah.

Choosing a first place from among the Elite Eight?

Is it any wonder she hasn't found it easy?

Maybe she should just – send them a picture and see if they notice. She runs a hand down her midsection. Catching her own reflection in the glass of a large framed print and pauses to turn first one way, then the other.

How long until children can fly unattended these days? Maybe she can just wait until the baby is old enough to tell the East Coast family himself.

"Everything okay here?"

She spins around to see Callie Torres looking at her. "Hi." She hopes she doesn't look as self-conscious as she feels.

"Hi," Callie repeats, then cranes her neck to see her own reflection in the glass. "What?" she asks when Addison looks at her. "I figured this is what we're doing."

Addison is amused. "I was just wondering." She smooths the material of her blouse over her midsection. "Is it … do you think it's obvious?"

"Obvious?" Callie raises her eyebrows, looking down at Addison's midsection. "I've been more _obvious_ after a burger."

Addison makes a face at her.

"Anyway, I thought everyone already knew? The whole – hospital prom thing?"

"Not everyone was there," Addison says with some dignity. "There were … people off shift."

"People off shift," Callie repeats, sounding amused. "Okay, then."

"Callie." Addison tilts her head, trying to decide if the question will be intrusive. "Have you heard anything from Stevens? About how she's doing?"

"Izzie?" Callie raises her eyebrows. "She doesn't exactly confide in me. I'm not what you would call her favorite person."

"Oh."

Callie shakes her head. "No, maybe I spoke too quickly. What I meant to say is – I'm her least favorite person."

They share a smile.

"Because of O'Malley?" Addison asks, then pauses. "Sorry, I don't mean to pry."

"Nah, pry all you want. And yeah, because of George. I guess she doesn't want anyone to date him if she's not going to date him."

"If she's – " Addison considers this. "The two of them? I thought they were just friends."

"They are," Callie concedes. "But – and no offense, Addison, really – but weren't you and McSteamy also _just friends_ … until you weren't?"

She can't even take offense; she's too busy wrinkling her nose at the name. "McSteamy? Really?"

"Hey, I don't make the rules." Callie lifts her hands. "Take it up with the interns."

"I think I'll pass on that." They share another smile. But, seriously – _McSteamy?_ "Do I want to know what they call me?" Addison asks finally.

"Mm … probably not."

Seems fair.

Which is how she ends up catching up to Grey instead.

..

"Dr. Shepherd," she says politely, seeming pretty unruffled considering Addison now has a documented medical history of passing out pretty much _on_ her.

"Dr. Grey," she says in return, giving her best deb smile. "I wanted to ask you how … how Dr. Stevens is doing."

Grey looks away for a moment. "She won't let anyone call her Dr. Stevens anymore."

"I guess that answers my question." Addison sighs. "I'd like to see her."

"See Izzie?" Now Grey looks directly at her, surprised.

"Unless you think she'd mind. I, uh, I'm not sure where she is."

"Home," Grey says. "She's home. Hasn't left."

Ah.

This she knows, Doc's provenance. They're roommates – housemates, whatever.

"Okay," Addison nods.

"Okay," Grey repeats. She pauses. "Did you – need the address?"

Addison smiles tightly. "I'm sure I can get it from my husband."

"Right." Grey nods, her lips pressed together. "You can do that."

..

"Meredith."

She turns around, looking annoyed, when Derek catches up to her on the catwalk. "Dr. Shepherd," she says pointedly.

"Dr. Shepherd?" He raises an eyebrow. "You're mad at me again."

"I'm not mad at you. I'm not anything at you." She draws visible breath. "What do you want?"

He's taken aback at her dismissive tone, and she seems to notice.

"Did you have a case for me?" she asks.

"Will you be nicer to me if I have a case for you?"

"Don't." She shakes her head. "Just – don't."

"I'm sorry." He feels a little guilty; habits are hard to break.

"Did you want something … Dr. Shepherd?" she asks, more patiently this time.

"I did, actually. I was wondering why my wife needed your address."

"Why don't you ask your wife?"

He exhales forcefully. She's not going to make this easy; fine. "I'll do that," he says.

He's walking away when he hears her voice.

He turns, not quite having caught her words. "What did you say?"

"I said, Addison mentioned Doc was doing better."

He nods.

"That's good," Meredith says quietly. "I'm glad he's better."

"Yes." He gives her a tight smile. "So am I."

..

Outside the big Victorian, Addison pushes her oversized sunglasses on top of her head and takes in the view. Queen Anne – back when she thought they might actually buy property … real property, not trailer property … she did a bit of research. Not a bad neighborhood, though not the one she would have chosen first either.

Strolling up to the front door, her heels audible on the flagstones, she can't help but feel a bit like the wicked witch arriving at the gingerbread house.

Which is probably not how the fairy tale goes, but it's hard to remember. And she's fairly sure the witch with the gingerbread house was more likely to eat children than she was to bear them, so her pregnancy doesn't quite fit in, but –

"Dr. Shepherd?"

O'Malley pulls open the door, looking hangdog-ish as usual and genuinely surprised to see her. He's wearing a sweatshirt of some sort and holding a tote bag; she's apparently caught him on his way out. "What are you doing here?" he asks.

"Hello to you too, O'Malley," she says, nodding toward the threshold. "Are you going to invite me in?" she asks patiently when he doesn't respond.

"In? Oh. In. Um ... yes?" he says, his voice rising at the end and she forces herself not to roll her eyes at his uncertain inflection – the same one that drives her mad in the OR. _Ten blade? You would, uh, you would make the first cut?_ She gets impatient with interns like that: _are you asking me or telling me?_

But she supposes this is his house – a frat house, it seems – so she pastes on a smile she hopes is convincing. "Yes, O'Malley. In."

"Right. In." He steps back. "Uh, I was actually about to go. My shift starts at – you don't care when my shift starts." He winces, apparently embarrassing himself.

She doesn't tell him how correct he is.

"Please, O'Malley, don't let me make you late. I'm actually here to see Stevens."

After some more tortured back and forth – _Stevens? Oh, Stevens. Yes, O'Malley, Stevens. Rinse, repeat_ – he steps aside, directing her to the kitchen.

Oh, good.

Her favorite place.

..

"Shepherd."

He looks up to see Bailey glaring at him.

"What did I do?" he asks automatically.

"You leaned."

"I what?"

She gestures at the wall. _"Leaned,_ Shepherd. You're leaning again. Why are you leaning again?"

He tries to make sense of this.

"The last time you leaned this much … you were in the middle of breaking my intern."

He winces at the reference. "That wasn't easy for me, you know."

"Oh, I know. We all know." Bailey pauses. "What's the matter with you?" she asks, the words somehow sounding almost … compassionate, from her, rather than challenging.

"Nothing." He pauses. "Addison asked for Meredith's address."

Bailey points a finger. "You said no leaning, Shepherd. I'm going to hold you to that."

"It's nothing like that," he assures her quickly. "I just wasn't sure why – " but then he is sure, as sure as if he figured it out himself.

 _Am I invisible? I feel invisible. Also, inaudible._

"Dr. Stevens," he muses. "She wanted to see Dr. Stevens."

Bailey's face is impassive.

"How is – all that?" he asks tentatively.

"Just as good as it sounds."

Right.

"That's why you were leaning?" Bailey asks, sounding doubtful. "Because your wife went to go see Stevens?"

"No." He pauses, Bailey's face, as always, compelling truth. "Addison, uh, she doesn't want to tell anyone. About the baby."

Bailey looks confused. "Doesn't everyone – "

" – yes. Everyone here, yes. It's other people that are causing the issue."

"Other people," Bailey repeats. "Back home, you mean."

 _And figuring out where home is … that's another issue._

He just nods. Bailey doesn't say anything, but he feels compelled to continue, for some reason. "I thought since everyone here already knew, we could just – get on with telling people. I don't know why she's dragging it out." He pauses. "Dr. Bailey, you had a baby."

"You noticed," she says.

"And you told people."

"I think they would have noticed the extra person," she says drily.

"Your family," he continues. "Or your – in-laws. You told them."

Bailey studies him for a moment. "Addison doesn't want to tell your family?"

He nods.

"Well, what's wrong with them?"

He's confused. "What's wrong with – nothing's wrong with them. What do you mean?"

"Do they get along?"

"Oh." He considers the question. "Yes. She's close to my sisters. And my mother is – " He pauses. "It's a little complicated."

"Mm." Bailey nods knowingly. "How bad are we talking here? Are we talking Dr. Burke's mother level of complicated?"

"No," he says hastily, remembering the commotion of the woman's visit and her reaction to finding out Cristina Yang was involved with her son. "No, nothing like that. Just – complicated."

"Maybe she doesn't want complicated," Bailey suggests. "The whole hospital found out by accident. Maybe she wants to tell the others in her own way. Her own _not complicated_ way. Sounds pretty simple to me, Shepherd."

He considers this. "Did you – hesitate to tell people you were pregnant? Were you worried about telling people?"

"I was worried about telling the chief," Bailey says, a look of reminiscence on her face. "I remember that. I wasn't sure how to tell him."

"But you eventually told him."

"I did." Bailey nods. "Not the way I planned, exactly. I just – blurted it out." She gestures evocatively.

"Blurted it out," he repeats.

"Blurted it out – and called him a moron when I did."

"A moron?"

"A blind moron." She pauses. "Not exactly the way I planned it, no."

Derek winces a little, imagining it. "You called the chief a blind moron," he summarizes. "Your boss. You called your boss that."

"Yes, Shepherd. I was there."

"But he didn't hold it against you. You're still his top in your year."

"So?"

"So, that's the strongest testament to your surgical skills I've seen yet."

Bailey makes a decent show of exasperation, and he may be a bit of a blind moron himself sometimes – just ask his wife – but he can tell she's pleased anyway.

..

"Have a muffin." Stevens pauses the repetitive circles she's been tracking in the mixing bowl. "You probably don't eat carbs."

"I eat carbs," Addison says. "I like carbs. Especially now." She pauses. "I'm, uh, I'm pregnant. I figured you had heard."

"I've been a little preoccupied," Stevens says wryly, and Addison finds herself flushing a bit. Of course each person is the main character in her own story, and Stevens has had enough to deal with without taking on the drama of her former mentor's surprise pregnancy. She looks at Stevens, still gripping the wooden spoon, looking pale and drawn in an oversized sweater.

"Of course you have. I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too," Stevens says, sounding distracted. "About the carbs, I mean. Have a muffin," she repeats. "They're good."

"I can do that." She can, and she will, and _god_ , Stevens wasn't exaggerating. They're good – they're more than good. Her baby has to be at least a quarter muffin by this point, most likely the really obscene chocolate-chip kind from the hospital cafeteria that she would normally shun with thinly-veiled disgust.

"It's delicious," she says. "You're quite a baker, Stevens."

"Yeah." Methodically, Stevens works the wooden spoon around the large mixing bowl. "Well, at least I can do something."

"You can do a lot of things." Addison studies her downcast face. "You're a gifted intern, Stevens."

"I'm not an intern anymore."

"Which means you have the promise to be an excellent surgeon," Addison continues as if she hasn't been interrupted.

"I'm not going to be a surgeon." Stevens measures a scoop of flour, then eyes it. "You have to be an intern to be a surgeon, and I'm not an intern."

"Stevens."

"I quit the program." She glances at Addison. "I figured you knew," she adds, borrowing Addison's words from earlier.

"I did know."

"So you came to tell me what a terrible idea it is."

Addison shakes her head. "I just wanted to see how you were doing."

"To see how – " Stevens returns to her baking. "Dr. Shepherd. I don't work for you anymore. You don't have to pretend to be interested in how I'm doing."

"I'm not pretending." Addison rests a hand on her belly, automatically – she hasn't felt movement yet but still has a sense the baby is enjoying the muffin as much as she is.

She sees Stevens staring at her.

The expression in her eyes is hard to see – somewhere between blank, and lost. Maybe thinking all the _could have beens_ about the person she lost.

The _patient_ she lost, and just thinking about how seriously unfortunate it is that no one stopped it before it got that far – but no, now isn't the time for that.

Stevens is ignoring her again, it seems, back to measuring out scoops of dry ingredients. There are multiple canisters of sugar, all slightly different looking and this is why she's never cottoned on to baking. It's so finicky, without the satisfaction of surgery.

Mindlessly, she molds her hand to shape of her bump. She does care. Doesn't she? She's here, after all, and that's before she knew the world's fluffiest sugar bombs were being manufactured on the premises.

"Baking makes sense," Stevens says without preamble, sounding thoughtful.

"Medicine doesn't make sense?" Addison asks.

"Not to me. Not anymore." Stevens dumps a scoop of flour into the bowl. "Maybe it never did."

"But you did it anyway. You took a long path to get there. And you were good at it."

"Good." Stevens shakes her head. "No."

"I told you that you showed promise in my specialty."

"Yeah, but that was before – "

"Before Emily?" Addison asks quietly.

Stevens blinks; Addison gets the sense no one has mentioned the quint's name to her since her death.

"Before you tricked me, yeah."

"Would it make a difference if I said I was trying to help you?"

She shakes her head.

"What if I said it was Richard – Chief Webber's – idea?"

Now Stevens looks vaguely interested.

"Or that he did it to me first, when I was an intern?"

"He did?"

Addison nods. "He said learning distance would make me a better doctor."

"You said that to me," Stevens reminds her.

"I know."

"Did it?"

"Did what?"

"Did it make you a better doctor," Stevens says, one hand still fisting the wooden spoon she's been using to stir batter. "Distance."

"I wouldn't know," Addison says honestly.

"You didn't learn distance," Stevens guesses.

 _Addison, don't do this. Don't get attached. Don't get involved._

"Not so much, no." Addison studies the platter of muffins next to her.

"Have another," Stevens suggests.

She tears a still-warm blueberry muffin in half – to be polite, that's all. The fact that it melts on her tongue with a sugary crust is just bonus.

"If you didn't learn anything, why did you do it to me?" Stevens asks.

"I don't know." Addison takes a bite of muffin, mainly to buy time, then sighs a little once she's swallowed another delicious mouthful. "Richard – the chief told me to. Asked me to, whatever."

But is it _whatever?_ She finds herself questioning the interaction. Was she following an order? Taking a suggestion?

"He said that you reminded him of me," Addison admits, eyes lowered a little just in case.

It's been a while since that first conversation with Stevens. _When you decide how important it is for you to hate me, let me know._

Still, though.

When she looks up again, Stevens is gazing at something she can't see.

"You have Doc," Stevens says.

Addison nods, not sure where this is going.

"Right. Of course you do. You know he was here first. Ours first."

"I know."

"We only got him because Emily died. Because I was sad, and Meredith wanted to cheer me up."

Addison nods again.

"But I was sad because of what you did. With the – trick. So I guess we actually got Doc because of you." Stevens looks at her for a second. "So it makes sense he's yours now."

She supposes, after a fashion, it does.

"I heard he was sick," Stevens says, returning to her mixing.

"Doc? He was, but he's getting better."

Stevens glances at her. "Meredith said it was pretty bad."

"Sometimes it seems that way, and then it gets better. Like with patients," Addison reminds her gently. "Dogs are patients too."

 _Dogs are patient too._ She pauses for a moment, thankful their son is too young to repeat her words to his father – who would mock her mercilessly for them, she's certain.

"I guess so."

Stevens returns to her mixing bowls.

"I should get back to work," Addison says, sensing the conversation is done, and telling herself it's only good manners to accept when Stevens foists a basket of fresh muffins on her before she goes. Then she pauses.

"Dr. Shepherd?"

She nods, holding the basket – it's heavier than it looks, but she has a sense she'll start lightening it on the drive back to the hospital.

"Aren't you going to tell me to stop baking and come back to work already?" Stevens asks.

Addison shakes her head.

"Come back when you're ready," she says. "Work will be there when you do."

..

Just like work is waiting for her when she returns to the hospital – in the form of a clucking senior resident who directs her to the bedside of a mildly bruised woman with a wild tangle of hair wearing a neck stabilizer and a nervous expression.

"I'm a goalie," she says. "Roller hockey. Flat on my back doesn't really work for me."

"I'm sorry." Addison glances at the resident. "I heard you took a tumble on the court." She flips through the chart, frowning a little.

"It wasn't that hard. I've taken worse. I don't even know why I'm still here." The woman is stockily built, a presence on the hospital bed. Addison scans the chart, then looks at the resident.

Does that mean –

He shakes his head, looking a little nervous.

So he didn't tell her.

 _Great._

"I really do think I'm fine," the woman is saying. "The EMT didn't seem worried either. He looked at my stomach, though – I don't have a spleen. I was in a car accident like – eight years ago. Some old guy rammed me at a stop light. Um, you're kinda making me nervous," the woman says, interrupting her.

"I'm sorry." Addison tosses a glare in the direction of the resident, lifting her chin sufficiently to send him out of the room, and then she turns back to the patient. "Jacqueline," she begins.

"Jack. Everyone on the team calls me Jack." She pauses. "Do you think I can get back for the rest of the game?"

"Actually, Jack, I think you might need to take a little time off from roller hockey." Addison gestures at the chair next to the bed. "May I sit down?"

..

Derek is thinking about his conversation with Bailey as he studies the series of backlit images.

Is it harder to share information when you have some control over how it's disseminated?

And is his family – really, _their_ family – so intimidating?

..

"I already told you that's not possible."

"Jack," she says gently. "I know this is – "

"No. Look, I know you're a fancy doctor or whatever and you think you're smarter than everyone, but I'm not an idiot."

"Of course you're not."

"I would know if I was _pregnant_." She says the word like it tastes bad, then shifts in her cervical collar. "Can I get up?"

"Not yet, Jack. We still have a few more – "

"I don't want any more tests." She stares at the ceiling, but Addison can still see the tears in her eyes.

She waits a few moments, getting the sense despite her hostility that Jack isn't ready for her to leave yet, and sure enough – she starts talking again.

"There's a guy." She glances at Addison. "This guy. He plays for the Terriers – Tacoma," she clarifies, and Addison nods as if she's familiar with the ins and outs of greater Seattle area roller hockey. "We're not, like, together though."

Addison nods.

"He's kind of with someone else."

"Jack." Addison leans forward. "Is there someone I can call, for you?"

"No," she says quickly. "I don't want anyone on the team to know."

"Family, then," she suggests. "Your parents?"

She shakes her head. "They've been married like five hundred years and practically live at church. They think I'm a virgin."

 _That's what Mary thought too._

"We used a condom." Jack looks at her with tear-filled eyes. "Almost every time."

Addison nods sympathetically. "I know this is a lot," she says. "But now that you know, we need to get you checked out – get prenatal care for you and … ."

She stops talking, getting the sense Jack isn't ready to hear _the baby._

"What about my options? Aren't you supposed to – like – tell me my options?"

Slowly, Addison nods. "If adoption is something you'd like to consider, there are counselors here at the hospital who can talk to you about what that process might look like."

"What about abortion?"

"Jack, I'm sorry." Addison studies her patient's sad, bruised face. "Your pregnancy is too advanced to consider termination."

"But I didn't even know. How can it be too advanced?"

"You're twenty-nine weeks along," Addison reminds her, gently. "You're already in the third trimester."

"That can't be right. I would have known," Jack says again, her tone stubborn.

Addison just listens to her go through the litany again. Irregular periods, fluctuating weight, a healthy sense of denial over illicit sexual encounters. There's always something heartbreaking about surprise pregnancy this advanced – it's both tragic and hopeful, the idea of a baby developing sturdily inside a mother who has no idea. Like those wildflowers you see forcing their way up between concrete steps. Life is a powerful force.

"Test me again," Jack demands now.

"If you'd like, we can run another pregnancy test," Addison says patiently. There's a neatly scratched EKG in her chart, sonogram images, proof screaming _baby_ more than Jack's admittedly ambiguous shape. Proof, when you don't want to see it, though? Doesn't look like proof.

This she knows.

She glances up, relieved to see that the social worker she summoned is at the door. Toni – one of her favorites, experienced with troubled pregnancies. She excuses herself from her patient's side and steps outside to speak briefly with the social worker.

"Twenty-nine weeks," Toni repeats quietly. She looks at Addison. "Any issues with development?"

"Most markers seem to be normal at this point," Addison says. "There are a few images I'd like to capture, but later – she needs you more than she needs me now."

Toni gives her a sympathetic glance and then steps into the room.

Addison leans against the wall outside for a moment, gathering breath.

Truthfully, Addison sympathizes too. It's not just bedside manner.

Her own pregnancy, though discovered far earlier and under different circumstances, shocked her too.

She, too, had trouble believing it was real.

And she's not a scared roller hockey goalie, either. She's Addison Shepherd. She lives, breathes, eats, and sleeps pregnancy. She's the woman who, despite her admitted vanity, has never once ordered an egg-white omelet, hips be damned, because it's too linguistically close to that gloriously sought after _egg-white cervical mucus._

She's been careful, so careful, for _years._ Even in the back seat of Chip Wetherby's car when she was a teenager who still thought drinking to unconsciousness was a right of passage and had only just given up the dream of losing her virginity to Van Halen, she still wrestled a condom out of the insanely tight back pocket of her Calvins and didn't let Chip go forward without it. Derek used to tease her and, eventually, resent her for it. _Would it be so terrible? If you weren't careful?_ She'd sulk or argue back or, depending on the time of the month, cry about it.

For some reason, she thinks she might cry now.

Whether it's Jack's pained denial, Stevens's depression, her own hormones, or the realization of how many calories must be inside each of those miraculous muffins … she's close to tears herself.

She swings by Derek's office, but it's empty – a glimpse at the board tells her he'll be occupied for several more hours.

There's plenty for her to do, including a stack of paperwork calling her name, but the glum stickiness of her afternoon clings and there's only one person she can imagine could wash it away long distance.

..

" … more of a savory cherry note than I expected, with a peppery sort of finish. And that's the last one." Savvy pauses. "Addie, did you really want all the details of the wine I've had without you?"

"I really did." She smiles, twisting the phone cord around her fingers. Just hearing Savvy's voice has calmed her down _almost_ as well as a glass of any of the wines her best friend described.

"Then I'm glad to be of service. I had sashimi last night near the office, do you want those details too?"

"Where?" Addison asks. "Was it the place with the things over the bar?"

"No, the other place." Savvy sounds like she's smiling. "Addie, you know I'll list everything I've eaten since law school if it will make you happy. But did you – call to tell me something?"

"No," she says truthfully. "I just wanted to talk to you."

"And drink some wine by proxy," Savvy teases.

"That too." Addison leans forward eagerly. "Are you drinking a glass right now?"

"It's seven-thirty," Savvy says, sounding amused. "I'm still at my desk. But … I do have some news."

"News!" Addison leans even further forward in her chair automatically, even though they're on the phone. "Tell me."

"Okay." Savvy draws audible breath. "We're moving forward," she says. "I mean, I know it doesn't sound that exciting but … it kind of is."

 _Moving forward._ It can only mean one thing.

"It more than kind of is, Sav."

"That's kind of convoluted, Ad."

"Is it _more_ than kind of convoluted, though?"

"Very funny."

She can hear that her friend is smiling, though. Savvy's always had one of those smiles that carries through in her voice.

"I told you we've talked to an agency." Savvy sighs. "Two agencies. Adoption … and also surrogacy."

"Ah." Addison leans back in her chair now; this part of the conversation seems like it might need some time. "I thought you were focusing on adoption," she prods carefully.

"So did I. It's Weiss who's pushing the surrogacy. We'd have to get an egg donor, you know, but he says hot blondes are a dime a dozen at these agencies so the baby could still … look like me. That's his terminology, not mine," Savvy adds.

"I figured."

"So an egg donor, but his … sperm. His baby, whatever. And it's complicated because you can't do it here, we'd have to fly all over, and … and I'm not crazy about the idea of _using someone._ That's my terminology, not Weiss's."

"I figured," Addison repeats.

"It's strange. It's – it feels wrong."

"I've consulted on gestational surrogacies," Addison says, sensing that Savvy is waiting for her professional weigh-in. "Not in New York, of course, because of the legalities."

 _Legalities._ Without even meaning to, she's adopting the quasi-diplomatic language she usually saves for patients considering termination.

But she doesn't want to think about that right now.

"I have a friend from residency who's a reproductive endocrinologist now in California. She has a professional relationship with one of the agencies, and I can put you in touch with her if you want to talk to her."

"You mean Naomi?" Savvy asks.

"Mm. No. Nai has a … complicated relationship with A.R.T."

"Isn't she a fertility doctor?"

"Yeah, she is. But I don't think she's the right choice. This is someone else."

"Oh. Well, yeah. Maybe, if it comes to that."

Addison is quiet for a moment, letting Savvy take her time.

"It's not like I think a baby has to look like me," Savvy says. "I have like … zero doubt I can love an adopted child. You know how much I loved Madonna Louise and she was adopted."

"Madonna Louise was a cat," Addison reminds her, smiling in spite of herself. "But I do remember how much you loved her – and how upset you were when the master figured out you were hiding a kitten."

They're both silent now, presumably remembering in tandem how they spent winter break that year on a perilous, snowy drive to Savvy's aunt in New Hampshire to transfer custody of the treasured calico cat.

"I still can't believe I convinced her we named the cat for the Beatles song," Savvy says now.

"It was a good sell."

It was.

As Savvy explained then, and repeats now: "The real Madonna would have been too Catholic for her and the … _hot_ Madonna, well, she would have been too heathen."

"She was a good cat," Addison says. She hesitates. "I don't know if it's a … flawless parallel to adopting a human."

"That's what Weiss said. And I know that," Savvy adds.

"Is he … opposed to adoption?"

"No, nothing like that. He just – well." Savvy pauses, her tone a little rueful now. "He gave me this … song and dance about his great-grandparents surviving the pogroms or whatever but I think the truth is that he's afraid the kid won't get into Harvard without those Weiss genes. Have you ever noticed the man has an ego?"

"I've noticed how well he and Derek get along, if that's what you're asking," Addison jokes, knowing Savvy wants to lighten the moment.

They talk for a few more minutes after that, letting the subject matter range away from both their growing families.

"You'll keep me posted?" Addison confirms before they say goodbye.

"Not if you keep me posted first."

Addison is still smiling when she hangs up the phone. She's seen Derek's name flash across her blackberry; he must be out of surgery.

..

"Long day?" he asks, leaning forward to kiss her cheek.

"Long day," she confirms, scanning his face. He looks tired, but she can tell from his expression the procedure was reasonably successful. Maybe not as much so as he hoped. "Yours too," she predicts, and he nods.

"You saw Stevens," he says, surprising her.

"I did see Stevens."

"How is she?"

"She'll be okay," Addison says, not really sure of it until she pronounces the words and then suddenly very certain. "She needs a little time, I think, but she'll be okay."

"Good." Derek reaches out to disentangle a strand of hair from her collar, only to find his watch band entangled instead. They bump into each other's hands trying to free his, and she's laughing a little when they finally separate.

"Hungry?" he asks.

"Your son is."

She doesn't miss the look in his eyes when she says _your son._

"If my son is hungry, then we need to feed his mother."

"My thoughts exactly." She turns away from the doors to rest a hand on the lapel of his jacket, smiling. "Derek … I wanted to tell you something. Over dinner."

"You're pregnant," he deadpans, and she makes a face.

"No, it's just – I think I decided. About telling people."

He looks distracted, which is strange, considering how much he wanted her to do this.

"Derek. I decided who we should tell first. _Derek._ " She waves a hand near his face now, confused and a little irritated. "Don't you want to know who we're going to tell first?"

He's staring over her shoulder for some reason.

"Derek?"

He meets her gaze, looking slightly dazed. "I, uh, I already know," he says.

"What do you mean?" When he doesn't respond, she props a hand on her hip. "Derek? Is everything all right?"

When his eyes track over her shoulder again, she sighs, impatiently following his gaze – just as she hears their names called out down the hallway.

"Addison! Derek!"

Striding across the linoleum floor on sharply clacking heels, coat billowing out behind her and scarf wrapped tastefully around her long neck … is someone who shouldn't be in Seattle.

Because she should be across the country.

Because she doesn't know, because no one back home knows yet, and –

"Nancy!" Addison finds herself gripping her husband's arm like some kind of pregnancy-hiding life raft. "I … had no idea you were coming to Seattle."

Nancy pauses halfway to an embrace and then steps back, her gaze sliding down Addison's flattering – but not exactly bump-hiding – outfit.

Addison watches her sister-in-law's eyes widen as she takes a few loaded moments to adjust her perfectly arranged silk scarf.

"Well," Nancy says, "it seems like both of us are full of surprises."

Addison smiles weakly. "What, uh, what are you doing here, Nance?"

Nancy touches a manicured finger to her jaw thoughtfully. "Under the circumstances, Addie, I think I should get to ask the first question."

Derek and Addison exchange a glance.

Under the circumstances … that does seem fair.

 _After all my torment and overthinking, I ended up ... kinda liking the chapter. And I really hope you did too. The next chapter has already taken shape, and I think things are about to get pretty interesting. Thank you as always for reading - I hope you'll review and let me know what you think. I love hearing your thoughts. Happy Monday, all!_


	17. Second Try, Part I

_**READ BEFORE READING! This is the first of two new chapters posted this week, because the first attempts at Chapter 17 was too enormous. So without too much pun intended, here's my second try at Second Try, in two parts this time. READ THIS ONE FIRST.**_

 _ **(And I'm sorry for any confusion.)**_

 _ **I initially posted one giant (like, even for me. GIANT) Chapter 17, all excited to make it under the wire just past midnight here... but still Sunday in Seattle. And then I woke up with a QPQ hangover and realized I wrote a 9 jillion word chapter and blamed it on having to hide from the sounds of GoT last night while I was finalizing. The point is, I don't think I've ever done this before, but I took back the chapter! And then revised it into two, so they are more human sized.**_

 _ **In sum: Happy QPQ Sunday (on Monday) and thank you to everyone who has read, reviewed, and kept me on track. I hope you enjoy this chapter!**_

* * *

 ** _Second Try, Part I_**

 _Gestational Age: Fourteen weeks, four days_  
 _Baby is the Size of a: lemon (sadly, hold both the gin and the tonic for now)  
Trimester: second, glorious second  
Maternal Weight Gain So Far: none of anyone's business, thank you very much_  
 _First Extended Family Member to Know: probably the one standing right here  
Odds Baby's Father Will Appreciate Auntie's Unannounced Visit: slim to slim  
Odds Baby's Mother Will Somehow Get Blamed for Said Visit: fat, very fat_

 _.._

* * *

Addison is still staring at her sister-in-law, who – despite her reasonable-under-the-circumstances request that she get to ask the first question – still hasn't said anything.

Nancy, for her part, is just staring back at Addison.

Well. At a particular part of Addison.

She rests her own hand on that part now, enjoying the freedom that comes with having accidentally informed her entire workplace of her no-longer-secret pregnancy.

"Nancy." Derek shakes his head, apparently also still processing her surprise appearance. "You don't call first?"

"Didn't we agree that I get to ask the first question?" Nancy raises an eyebrow.

… they didn't, but it seems petty to point that out.

"So." Nancy turns to Addison. "How's that patient doing who needed the consult with Melissa?"

Addison flushes.

"She's, uh, she's doing well."

"Second trimester," Nancy says thoughtfully. "All downhill from there, right?"

"Usually."

"So?"

Addison is confused.

"Are you going to tell me your news?"

Addison looks down at her not-at-all-concealed bump and then back at her sister-in-law.

Okay, if Nancy wants her to tell – then she'll tell. Addison glances at her husband, then gives Nancy a tentative smile and the most decisive half-nod she can manage. "I'm pregnant."

… the fact of which, in case it wasn't clear, obviously hasn't eluded Nancy, an experienced obstetrician who has been delivering babies longer than Addison herself, and who has already trapped Addison into acknowledging the lie that surrounding her recommendation of Addison's actual OB.

Addison just waits, admittedly nervous.

She and Nancy were closer than sisters – but they had one awkward drink after Derek left for Seattle, a few phone calls … nothing like what they used to have.

Here and now, Nancy looks from Derek to Addison and then back again.

"You're pregnant?" she asks slowly.

"I'm pregnant," Addison repeats, more firmly this time.

"You're _pregnant_ ," Nancy says, and this fourth repetition finally seems to cut it, because a grin breaks across her familiar face and she steps forward to wrap Addison in a warm hug – one that surrounds her with the twin scents of Kérastase and Chanel No. 19, just as her sister-in-law's embraces always have.

She's missed this – what she used to think of as _our family_ and tried to resign herself to thinking of as _Derek's family_ when it seemed her husband was never going to speak to her again.

"This is wonderful, Addie. I'm so happy for you," Nancy says against her hair as they hold onto each other. She feels tears start in her eyes – for how many of Nancy's pregnancies did the news start this way, with an announcement and an embrace?

Now, after almost seventeen years, is it really, finally, her turn?

"You're pregnant," Nancy says again when she releases her, stepping back.

"Is she starting this again?" Derek asks, but he seems amused rather than annoyed – it's always a thin line with Nancy and Derek, and she's on alert for the most part.

"I'm finishing it," Nancy corrects him, and then steps forward to hug Derek too. "Congratulations," she says, and then props her hands on her hips.

"What?" Derek asks, his tone suspicious.

"Were you ever going to tell me?" she asks. "Or did you just – assume I'd show up in Seattle?"

"We definitely didn't think you'd show up in Seattle," Addison assures her, then pauses. "Why _are_ you in Seattle?"

"My favorite brother disappeared," Nancy says, with the air of someone beginning a long story.

Derek is supposed to cut in: _I'm your only brother_ , but he lets it go.

"And then my favorite sister followed him out to the middle of nowhere."

She never says _sister-in-law_ when she's doing this, and Addison's eyes are stinging again.

"And they fell off the face of the earth and bailed on Thanksgiving – and Christmas – and didn't ever call – "

"Nancy," Derek sighs, apparently tiring of her speech.

" – so I _had_ to fly all the way across the country to Seattle, of all places, just to see them."

"Nancy."

"And I had a patient in Portland."

"There it is," Derek says. "But I guess it's not as much fun without a guilt trip first."

"Exactly." Nancy's dark eyes are sparkling. "You know I wouldn't fly to the west coast for just anyone," she adds. "My college roommate – do you remember her?"

"No," Derek says, as Addison says, "Kathryn with a K?"

"Kathryn," Nancy confirms, beaming at Addison, "with a K and a Y."

Both women pause.

"But actually, she goes by _Aura_ now – that's it, no last name – and she was pregnant with twins."

Nancy pauses again, perhaps daring either of her listeners to challenge her patient's advanced maternal age.

"Her first pregnancy," Nancy adds. "And she didn't want any interventions."

Addison nods. At 42, going by her sister-in-law's age, G1 with multiples – no interventions? It sounds –

"Impossible," Nancy says, her expression mournful before it brightens. "But I did it."

"Of course you did." Addison nods with satisfaction.

"But you won't believe what … _Aura_ … was doing when I got there," Nancy begins, and then the two women spend a few minutes exchanging the kind of delivery details that tend to make Derek's focus wander.

And sure enough, barely a sentence into what even Addison can acknowledge is a rather gory description of a delicate internal version to turn the second, stubborn twin, Derek clears his throat.

Addison remembers they were going to dinner and after several none-too-subtle marital elbows to his ribs don't produce an invitation, she finally pronounces it herself – to a glare from her husband.

She's almost forgotten what this Shepherd tug-of-war felt like, as Nancy tucks a hand companionably into her arm while they head to the door.

Behind them, Derek is shaking his head. Addison gives him a wince of semi-apology and turns back to her sister-in-law, who hasn't missed this interaction.

"Don't worry, Addie," Nancy says. "Derek loves me – he just has a funny way of showing it." She turns around. "You love me," she reminds Derek, sounding both amused and bossy as Nancy is wont to do.

Derek, to his very slight credit, doesn't deny it.

Not out loud, anyway.

..

It's a miracle.

Addison her sparkling water and marvels at the relative peace between brother and sister.

… which she hopes isn't tempting fate.

But despite the potential for a rocky beginning, Derek managed not to glower over the salad course and Nancy not to smirk, and they've made it halfway through the kind of fish main that's fresh enough for Derek to feel like a flannel-wearing fisherman and prepared succulently enough for Nancy to feel like a discriminating foodie – without any nagging from Nancy or sulking from Derek.

Instead, they've filled the time with the neutral ground of nieces and nephews they've missed since Seattle. Learning that their breakfast-loving baby was a boy sent Nancy into paroxysms of delight on behalf of her own lone son. Now they've moved on to Katie's Harvard acceptance, with the concomitant exclamations of old age for all three of them.

Addison just swallows hard, congratulating Nancy and pretending she didn't already know the news from Savvy. It was that long-ago call that planted the seed of doubt in her about Nancy's remaining affection – but apparently the seed was harsher than it needed to be.

The portions are larger than she expected, and she can't make it more than halfway through her plate before they're in the land of Kyle, Nancy's only boy, and his prowess on the hockey rink.

Addison glances quickly and discreetly at her husband – she'll change the subject if it seems like ice hockey, and it sometimes does, is making him uncomfortable – but he looks fine, if a little distracted.

Meanwhile, she's tired – not first trimester tired, but tired nonetheless. She doesn't exactly, but probably could, fall asleep in the herbal tea she orders while Nancy drinks a cappuccino she wouldn't mind bathing in. They've made it through all of Nancy's and Kathleen's children and moved on to Lizzie's, and when Nancy gets to Tess, who apparently taught her grandmother how to email while she was home on break from Middlebury, Derek signals for the check.

To her relief.

"You look great, Addie," Nancy says as they make their way out of the restaurant, giving her an appraising look – and Addison, who didn't suggest otherwise, frowns a little.

"How long did you say you were staying, Nance?" Derek asks mildly as he holds the door open for both of them, and his sister makes a face at him in return.

..

"That ... was relatively painless," Derek announces, leaning his head out of the bathroom with his toothbrush half in his mouth.

Addison, who has been hanging her dress carefully in what passes for a closet in the trailer, raises an eyebrow.

"It was one dinner, Derek."

"Mm." His head disappears into the tiny bathroom, and she hears running water and some more vigorous brushing. When he sticks his head out again, his teeth are sparkling. " _One dinner_ can be a lot with Nancy," he reminds her.

"But it wasn't." She unfolds her silk pajamas, then sets them down again and pauses in front of the mirror, still in bra and panties. "Did you hear what Nancy said?" she asks, then rotates, studying her profile.

Derek emerges from the bathroom at last, patting his face with a towel. "Nancy said a lot."

"What she said about me." Addison frowns at her reflection. "That I … _look great_."

"You do look great."

"You know that's not what – Derek, don't distract me," she warns.

"Why not?" he asks their reflections, his arms now wrapped around her from behind. He fits a hand over the bump where their son is growing. "What's wrong with a little distraction?"

 _Depends on whether it's the sexy kind, or the kind where you ignore me for months on end until I do something really, really stupid._

"I've gained weight," she says instead of answering his question.

"Good."

"Derek."

"What?" He looks innocent when she twists in his arms. "You're pregnant, Addison."

"Now you sound like Nancy."

He pauses the movement of his hands, which were sliding down her waist. "Can we stop talking about Nancy?"

"I don't know," she says, pretending to give the question serious thought. "Can you suggest something better to talk about?"

He lifts an eyebrow. "I can suggest something better to do … ."

He does.

And then they do.

..

"I love the second trimester," Derek tells the ceiling. "This a great trimester."

Addison laughs against his chest. "You're welcome."

"Are you taking credit for the second trimester? I know surgeons have egos, but that's still a lot." He's pulling his fingers slowly through her hair while she rests her head on him – he feels relaxed and unhurried, his muscles relishing in stillness.

It's a great feeling.

This is a great trimester.

It's a great night, even – optimistic, perhaps, when Nancy surprised them – but that already feels like the past.

The present is now, here, in this bed: a light rain drumming the trailer outside and inside, the small swell where his child is growing presses against his body. The changes in _her_ body are very present in this position, from the curve of her lower belly that's new, announcing itself firmly, to the parts of her that are even softer. He's been married for eleven years, and with the same woman – barring three months – for nearly seventeen. Change happens, certainly, but it happens slowly. He didn't wake one day with hollows in his cheeks or salt strands in his dark hair.

These changes, the pregnancy changes, though?

They're fast. They feel fast to him, anyway, and he marvels at the way her once-familiar body is new once again.

She shivers lightly in his arms and he reaches around her to move the covers.

"Better?"

"Better than anything," she says quietly.

It's the Addison he's known for nearly two decades – generous with her affection, deserved or not, and he lets it wash over him. She's growing heavier against him, drifting to sleep, and he's not far behind himself.

But there's one thing left to do before he joins her in slumber – he stopped asking when Addison always said yes, but he's tentative anyway when he rests a gentle palm on her belly.

"Go ahead," she says softly when he doesn't speak.

"Good night, baby," he says, directing his words to the spot where their child is growing. Those words are always the same. What follows depends. "I hope you enjoyed meeting your Aunt Nancy," he says, feeling the movement of Addison's lips as she smiles against him. "And I'm glad she was on her best behavior, at least." He pauses. "Thank you for not making your mom sick anymore," he adds.

Addison laughs a little now, lifting her head. "That sounds nice enough," she says, one hand resting on his chest, "except I think there _might_ be an element of self-interest."

"It's a great trimester," Derek says simply, with dignity, and he pulls her down against him once more before she can object, just as Doc - who has been keeping a tactful distance - lumbers onto the bed to settle at their feet, descending into peaceful snores only moments later.

..

She meets Nancy for breakfast at the hospital – not the most exciting of dining spots, but she'd like a chance to see her once more before her flight, and she has patients.

"I was hungriest in the second tri too, especially when I was carrying Kyle," Nancy observes while Addison digs into her oatmeal.

 _Subtle, Nance._

"The oatmeal is good." Addison gestures to the bowl. "You should have some."

"Oh, I can't eat anything heavy in the morning," Nancy reminds her, sipping her coffee as if it's a chore and glancing, unimpressed, at the cubed melon on her plate. She turns to survey the misty view from the outdoor seating. "It's very humid here, isn't it?"

"Very." Addison swallows another bite of oatmeal and then, when Nancy's attention is diverted by her blackberry, shakes on a bit more brown sugar. "It's good for the skin," she reminds her sister-in-law.

"True." Nancy studies the back of her hand critically, her large rings catching the light. "Which is a good thing. I'm getting old."

"You're not getting old," Addison says automatically. "Didn't your college roommate just have twins?"

Nancy cracks a smile, then turns serious. "It's good to see you, Addie."

Her eyes fill with tears.

 _Damn hormones._

"It's good to see you too," she manages.

She considers how to say _I thought maybe you hated me._

But she doesn't.

"I'm glad you came," she says instead, and Nancy just smiles in response.

"Dr. Shepherd!"

They both turn to see George O'Malley approaching them at a clip.

"I went to your office," he says. "You weren't there."

"No," Addison agrees. "I'm here."

Nancy doesn't bother to muffle her snicker, and Addison feels a little bad.

"Dr. O'Malley, Dr. Shepherd," she introduces them politely.

"Shepherd?" O'Malley's eyebrows raise practically into his hairline.

"Don't worry, this one isn't married to Derek," Addison says.

"I'm his sister," Nancy announces.

"His sister," O'Malley repeats.

"Yes." Nancy smiles kindly at him. "And, let me guess – you're an intern."

"I – yes. I'm an intern." O'Malley looks at Addison, his eyes as pleading as Doc's when he sees Derek throwing meat on the grill.

"Did you need something, O'Malley?" she asks patiently.

"Yes!" He sounds relieved. "There's a patient – a transfer from Mercy West. They asked for you specifically. She's, uh, she's 32 weeks."

"Is she emergent?" Addison frowns.

"No. But she, uh – "

"Nancy."

They all look up to see Derek approaching. He nods briefly at O'Malley before turning to his sister.

"You made it before my flight," Nancy says, sounding rather impressed. Derek manages to stifle an annoyed reaction, too, and Addison smiles at both siblings as Derek helps Nancy with her suitcase.

"I'll walk you down," Addison offers.

"Dr. Shepherd – "

Now all three of them turn to face O'Malley, who looks a bit like he wished he'd gone into a field other than medicine.

"The patient," he says weakly.

"The non-emergent patient," Addison prompts. "Yes, Dr. O'Malley. Did you want to tell me something?"

Derek shoots her a sympathetic look as he starts to escort Nancy toward the door.

"Two uteruses," O'Malley blurts. "The patient has two uteruses."

There's a swirl and a clacking sound as Nancy turns back.

"Did someone just say uterus didelphys?"

"No," O'Malley says, then quickly changes his tune at a look from Addison. "I mean, yes. That's what I said."

"Two uteruses." Nancy glances at Addison.

"We should go downstairs," Derek interjects. "Addison, if you need to see a patient – "

"She's not emergent," Addison says.

"She has two uteruses," O'Malley bleats, looking like he can't help himself, even when Derek turns to glare at him.

"Two separate cervices," Nancy is musing, looking distracted. "I'd need to know more about her vagina, though," she says.

Derek clears his throat. "Don't you have a flight to catch?" he asks pointedly.

Nancy looks at Addison, who looks at Derek, whose eyes widen.

"Nancy?" he asks. "Your flight?"

..

"This is not my fault, Derek," Addison says firmly. "I didn't tell her to stay."

"No, you just told you about the patient with the two uteruses."

"That was Dr. O'Malley who told her, actually."

"Fine … then it's O'Malley's fault." Derek takes her arm when a passing resident glances at them, moving her toward a more private spot, "which sounds about right."

Addison frowns. "That's not very nice."

Derek tries not to roll his eyes. Addison is just as likely to tear an intern a new one as he is, but of course she's going to be supercilious about it now.

"Is it really so bad that she's staying?"

"What do you want me to say to that, Addison?"

"Derek, she's your sister."

"Yes." He grimaces. "I know who she is."

"Then can't you be happy to see her?"

"Have you met her?"

Addison shakes her head. "Derek, she came here to see us."

"She came here to get intel," Derek continues, "to bring it back to my mother and the – rest of them."

Addison opens her mouth, perhaps considering rebutting what's obviously a clear truth, and then thinking better of it.

"You agree," he points out.

"Nancy was worried about us," Addison says insistently.

"Nancy was _nosy_ about us."

Addison edges her lower lip with her top teeth, a habit so reminiscent of the girl who studied with him in medical school – study sessions that ended, more often than not, in _not_ studying – that he has to look away before he loses steam.

"I didn't know she was going to stay," Addison says finally, quietly.

"But you don't mind, do you." He studies her face. She looks torn. Addison's always been close to Nancy; he shouldn't be surprised.

"I don't … want you to be uncomfortable," she says finally, looking pretty uncomfortable herself. She looks away, and the slight movement of her body sends her torso into enough profile to remind him of her baby bump. "I'm sure she won't stay that long," she adds.

"She was supposed to leave this morning," he reminds her.

"I know that, Derek." Addison sighs. "Can you just – it's not my fault," she says again, her voice shaking a little, and he's both guilty and annoyed, all at once.

The kind of multitasking required if you want to be married to Addison, and apparently – despite all odds – he does.

So be it.

"Derek – "

"It's fine, Addie. It's fine, just – forget it. Enjoy your two uteruses and your … Nancy … and I'll just see you later."

" _Derek._ "

He leans in and kisses her cheek – he's not storming off, that's not what this is – and then walks away without looking over his shoulder, even though he knows she's watching. Addison would have turned into a pillar of salt, he knows this, but Derek … he can hold out.

He steels himself, and makes it halfway to his office before he pauses on the catwalk to catch his breath.

Nancy, still here.

She was supposed to leave.

He was supposed to be able to breathe.

He knows it's not Addison's fault, not really, but she also didn't tell Nancy not to stay. Couldn't she have done that? How unusual is a patient with two uteruses and a wholly separate pregnancy in each?

(Very. It's very unusual, and he's aware of this, but he needs to be petty right now.)

Outside, there's a thick mist rolling off the sound. He should be able to enjoy the view. He should be able to enjoy Seattle, without it filling up with … Shepherds.

"Shepherd."

He looks up, surprised, to see Bailey. She's watching him, her eyebrows raised meaningfully.

"I wasn't leaning," he says quickly.

"Good." She nods. "Keep it that way."

..

"I want to see the two uteruses," Nancy calls as Addison makes her way to the patient's room.

"Get your paperwork in order, then."

"Fine." Nancy whips out her blackberry, lifting an eyebrow, as Addison closes the door behind her.

..

 _It was one night, Greg! It was one night, I didn't think this could happen!_

Her patient's panicked words ringing in her ears, Addison leans against the wall, focusing on breathing.

No big deal.

Totally fine.

She just broke the news of her patient's infidelity to her husband.

And then her patient's husband stormed out.

And her patient has two uteruses, with two separate pregnancies with two distinct gestational ages and now O'Malley is chasing her down again, with a look on his face she knows well.

"The baby's in distress," he pants, and Addison is following at a clip before she can even ask _which baby?_

..

"Nice and easy," she directs.

It's not every day you get to tell an intern to hold onto the top uterus so you can perform a cesarean on the other uterus.

Murmuring reassurance, she continues.

George O'Malley is doing a decent job so far, too. She's going to tell her husband this, tonight, and make him feel guilty for suggesting O'Malley isn't much of an intern.

And then something good will come of this, because thinking of Greg's taking off when he realized one of the twins wasn't his – even though Noelle didn't even cheat on him, they were broken up – is making her stomach turn unpleasantly under her scrubs.

"Ready to perforate uterus two," Addison recites.

"Wait, Dr. Shepherd, my baby's moving," O'Malley calls. "It's really moving. I can't hold it."

"I need you to hold her still if I'm going to do the c-section."

There's an instant in which the baby starts descending into distress and Addison wonders if her two uteruses are going to end in two fetal demises – and then suddenly Alex Karev is there, he who claimed to be finished with neonatal altogether, and he's talking.

And it's working.

She listens as Karev – who must have been listening when Noelle's fiancé told them the unborn twins liked hearing about sports – uses just his voice to bring the baby's vitals back down.

"Scalpel," she says, and they're off to the races.

..

"Karev, you did well in there," she says once she's scrubbed out, adorable and reasonably healthy baby boy comfortably warming, pushing open the swinging door.

In response, Karev just smirks a little. "I didn't really have a choice."

Ugh.

She narrows her eyes. "Hippocratic Oath, grudge against an attending … pretty much the same thing."

"Pretty much," he agrees, his expression typically insolent. "But actually, I was referring to O'Malley choking in there."

"… go away, Karev," she says.

She hears him start to leave, and then the swiveling sound of his sneakers turning back. "I'm just going to check on the baby first," he mutters.

"You do that."

She keeps her tone cool and her face expressionless.

Interns like Karev – don't need praise.

But as she watches him with the baby, she can grudgingly admit he has a certain … something.

"He's cute."

She jumps at Nancy's unexpected interruption, then rolls her eyes.

"He's an intern, Nancy. A baby."

"That didn't stop your husband."

She opens her mouth to defend him, _she's not as young as the others, even if she's an intern,_ then changes her mind.

What's the point?

Nancy is studying her face. "Don't tell me you're going to defend him," she says.

She knows her too well, really.

"I wasn't going to defend him," Addison lies. "I was going to defend … her."

"Her." Nancy's eyes widen. "The lusty intern, you mean?"

Addison wrinkles her nose. "Do you really need to call her that?"

"That's what Mark called her."

Addison tries hard not to react, visibly, to hearing his name. "Well, if you haven't heard, Nancy, Mark doesn't always have the best judgment."

"Touché." Nancy leans back against the wall, silent.

"You, uh, you saw him?" she asks, hoping her tone is casual.

What can she say? _Did he mention me? Did he mention I'm a liar?_

He can't have, though – Nancy would have brought it up. She's never been much of a secret keeper.

 _Not like some people._

"After his little jaunt out here." Nancy purses her lips. "I saw his stitches, too."

"Yeah." Addison looks down at her hands, idly twisting her rings.

"He was full of some story about Derek punching him when he saw him talking to his lusty intern, when all he did was – walk out of the room when he caught him with you."

Addison's cheeks burn – below the surface, she hopes.

 _All he did was walk out of the room when he caught him with you._

Mark wasn't lying – Mark is a lot of things, but not a liar. As far as Mark knows, Derek did walk out of the room. And then Mark walked out of the room.

And then Derek walked back in.

Everything after that, she's kept to herself, not even telling Savvy.

Everything after that, she pretends never happened.

But now isn't the time for that. Nancy's watching, and Nancy's waiting.

She draws a deep, shaking breath.

The uncharitable thought crosses her mind: _when are you flying out?_

Even though none of this is Nancy's fault.

"I'm tired," Addison says after a moment.

"I thought you might be." Nancy leans forward, a conspiratorial expression on her face. "I booked us massages."

"You did?" She brightens at the prospect. "Not at the Archfield … ?"

Nancy shakes her head. "No. Some – boutique place Melissa recommended. She swears it's the best prenatal massage in the Pacific Northwest."

… as it turns out, it is.

Well.

Addison hasn't been massaged at every spa in the Pacific Northwest, much to her chagrin if you were to ask her right now, but this one is definitely up there. The robes are light as a feather, the tranquil bamboo-floored rooms are spacious and redolent of eucalyptus, and her masseuse's hands are so gifted even Derek would have to admit he probably would have made a phenomenal neurosurgeon.

She's almost forgotten how good it can feel to wash off a tough surgery in fragrant waters – steamy for Nancy, tepid but still lovely for Addison and her breakfast-loving baby – and emerge silky soft and smelling of lavender and sage.

Which is why, even if Derek isn't thrilled that Nancy is still here, Addison … doesn't mind.

She doesn't mind at all.

For a few reasons.

 **One.** _This Spa._ Nancy has always had the kind of taste Carolyn Shepherd refers to, derisively, as _expensive,_ and Addison would have to agree in the sense that in her experience, you get what you pay for, and Nancy accepts nothing less than excellence whether it's the OR, her children's report cards … or the most luxurious prenatal massage west of the Mississippi. It's not that Addison is shy of funds for her own massage, or couldn't seek a recommendation from Melissa herself, but there's a difference between booking your own massage and having your sister-in-law surprise you with one. Not to mention Nancy's discerning taste in spas means Addison isn't stuck at the Archfield out of sheer convenience, feeling guilty that her masseuse played unwilling stork with her husband.

 **Two.** _Someone Else to Criticize Seattle_. Needless to say, Derek finds no fault with Seattle, which seems to him to be less of a city and more of the geographical personification of his mid-life crisis. If Meredith was The Anti-Addison, then Seattle is the Anti-Manhattan. And sure, out of her husband's earshot, she can grudgingly admit to liking certain things about Seattle (the coffee is pretty good, even if she's being deprived at the moment, the lake is pretty, full stop). But sometimes she just needs to grit her teeth and curse the persistent humidity for the way it makes her hair frizz, no matter how dewy it leaves her skin. And if there's anyone who's prepared to turn her nose up at the trailer and wax poetic about the beauty of a steaming subway grate, it's Nancy Shepherd. Frankly, she's surprised being this far from Barney's hasn't made Nancy break out in hives yet; she can only assume the advent of internet shopping is what's permitted her sister-in-law the luxury of bicoastal travel.

 **Three.** _Shoes, Glorious Shoes._ She's been trapped in a trailer with a husband who seems to think a few measly cabinets should be enough to house her shoe collection, and who glares at her when said shoes accidentally trip him or end up in the dog's mouth. Savvy was here all too briefly, and in between has been a vast wasteland of muddy wellies and the sort of wool clogs that shouldn't be permitted outside of a small intersecting swath of New England and a certain set of aging lesbians.

 **Four.** _Sisterhood._ Nancy, for all her flaws (aren't we all flawed?), sometimes reveling in provoking Derek and never quite as sympathetic to Amy as Addison would have preferred … Nancy is still the closest thing she has to a sister. She spent so long in Seattle without an ally. Savvy is a friend – a real friend, a true friend, her best friend – but Savvy loves Derek too, and Weiss loves Derek. That shouldn't be a real contrast, because of course Nancy is Derek's sister – but she's always been loyal to Addison. And then there's the even more crucial difference, which deserves its own entry.

 **Five.** _Nancy Doesn't Know._ Unlike Savvy, Nancy has no idea what really happened between Mark and Addison before she left for Seattle. Nancy knows less than Savvy, so of course she feels less guilty letting Nancy exclaim over her pregnancy. … and yes, this very fact makes her feel _more_ guilty. Therapist, party of one? No, wait – party of two. She's always a party of two now.

 **Six.** _She's the Breakfast-Loving Baby's Aunt._ Addison is well aware blood isn't required to make a family, and has no doubt Savvy will always be _Aunt Savvy_. But there's something about introducing the baby to his first blood relative outside of his parents – not that she'd readily admit something so sentimental to Derek – that feels, well … special.

"Addie."

She glances up. Nancy is lounging on the soft white cushions of a teak divan, her face in the shadow of the kind of creeping green plant that looks peaceful rather than predatory.

"Hm?"

"… you're pregnant," Nancy says, and she smiles so broadly the cucumber slices fall off her eyes into the lap of her spa robe, making them both laugh.

* * *

 _Aw, Nancy. Okay - so this ends Chapter 17 (which you may have noticed has both dialogue snippets and patient cameo from episode 3.08, Nancy's original visit in Season 2). On to Chapter 18, hesitantly subtitled "aren't winter's hands sore from these long chapters (they are"). That said, sore hands and QPQ hangover and all, I love your reviews and they are going to keep me on schedule. And to those who reviewed the previous chapter, I saw and I read and I love you and I'm sorry the site ate them along with the previous enormous chapter. xoxo_


	18. Second Try, Part II

_**A/N: Make sure to read Chapter 17 (also new on May 6!) before you read this one. Once you have, go ahead and read part two, aka "Nancy's still here" (sorry, Nancy).**_

* * *

 **Second Try, Part II**

 _Gestational Age: Fourteen weeks, five days_  
 _Baby is the Size of: an orange (so she bought a second book, don't sue her - at least it's still citrus based)  
Trimester: still second, glorious second  
Maternal Weight Gain So Far: still none of anyone's business, thank you very much_  
 _First Extended Family Member to Know: the one with the unannounced visit that's now been extended  
Odds Baby's Father Will Appreciate the Extension of Auntie's Unannounced Visit: as slim as said auntie, peripartum  
Odds Baby's Mother Will Continue to Get Blamed for Said Visit: as fat as baby's mother appears to said auntie  
Body Image in the Extended Shepherd Family: may need some work_

 _.._

* * *

Nancy is still here.

 _Post-op_ and _patient responsibility_ and _continuity of care_ and he agrees with all the buzzwords, but the point is: Nancy is still here.

And he's tired.

He's almost forgotten how tired his family can make him. Tired, distracted – enough that he barely notices a passing body in scrubs until he's all but crashed into it.

"Meredith," he says, surprised, taking her shoulders to steady her.

"So you did see me."

He smiles ruefully. "Sorry about that."

"It's okay." She looks at him briefly.

For just a moment he wonders if she can tell how tired he is. Can she read his face? Could she ever?

And then he feels guilty for even thinking it.

Before he can say anything else, a skidding of shoes announces they're no longer alone.

"Mer! Is McBitchy still h – oh." Cristina Yang stops talking and throws Derek a none-too-friendly look.

"Seriously?" Meredith asks, shaking her head at her friend.

"I didn't see him."

"How did you not see him?"

"Excuse me," Derek interrupts politely, before Cristina can continue or Meredith can point out that Derek actually didn't see her either. "Yes, Dr. Yang," he continues. "Dr. … McBitchy … is, in fact, still here."

Cristina has the good grace to look a little embarrassed before what looks like a very decent faked page hastens her away.

Watching her leave, he shakes his head.

 _McBitchy_ , indeed.

The _Mc_ is pure Seattle, through and through, but it's not like he hasn't heard the second part of that moniker to describe his sister – or, though he wouldn't admit it in front of either Nancy or his mother – used it himself.

Meredith looks like she's trying not to smile.

"McBitchy?" he repeats to her.

"That was all Cristina."

"Ah. That makes sense, then." He hesitates for a moment. "Nancy does – tend to speak her mind," he concedes.

"Sure," Meredith says, "but _McSpeaksHerMind_ is kind of long."

"Fair enough." He smiles at her.

"Derek!"

They both turn as Nancy sweeps up, in step with Addison. His automatic smile at the way his wife's open white coat billows, exposing the visible bump within, disappears at the expression on his sister's face.

"I hope we're not interrupting," Nancy says with false sweetness.

"Speak of the _McSpeaksHerMind_ ," Derek mutters for Meredith's benefit, instantly regretting it when Meredith can't seem to keep from smiling – and Nancy doesn't miss it.

"Is something funny?" she asks Meredith, arching an eyebrow. "Please, share it with the class."

"Nancy," Derek says sharply.

Addison hasn't spoken and she looks very much like she'd like to be anywhere else right now, but he finds himself irritated with her anyway.

"I have patients," Meredith says quickly, nodding a goodbye more polite than any Shepherd deserves right now, in his opinion.

He turns back to Nancy, not bothering to hide his anger. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Nancy's eyes widen at his tone.

"Derek," Addison says quietly, but he ignores her.

"Meredith hasn't done anything wrong," he reminds Nancy, "so you'd do well not to judge her when you don't have any idea what you're talking about."

"What about you, Derek?" Nancy asks, narrowing her eyes; she always did give as good as she got. "Have _you_ done anything wrong?"

He shakes his head – the nerve.

"This conversation is over," he announces. "I have patients."

He turns away, ignoring Addison's placating hand, ready to leave.

"You and the lusty intern both," Nancy says coolly from behind him. "Is she … on your service today?"

He whirls around, furious again.

Addison actually steps between them, which would amuse him if he weren't so angry: his pregnant wife interceding between two angry siblings.

There's no need, of course - their fights haven't been physical since Derek was in kindergarten, when Nancy took the last ice cream sandwich from the freezer and held it tauntingly over Derek's head while he struggled to reach it and finally in sheer frustration smacked her leg with one of his usually grubby little hands. Nancy ran in tears to their father to tell on him, and Derek received a firm lecture about never raising his hand to a girl. In retrospect … it seems not just dated but a bit unfair, since Nancy was two heads taller at the time and without a doubt the provocateuse, but having seen what it's like to referee the swarms of nieces and nephews his sisters have produced, he's willing to extend the benefit of the doubt to the father of a horde of children.

Addison is looing nervously at him, but he avoids her gaze, even as he realizes it's somewhat unfair to take out Nancy's aggression on what can only be terms a bystander.

A pregnant bystander.

Then again … they wouldn't be in this mess were it not for that particular pregnant bystander.

"What?" Nancy is asking, all faux innocence. "Did I say something to offend?"

"Nancy," Addison says before Derek can interject.

"I'm sorry," Nancy says, not sounding sorry at all, "I suppose I'm not used to coming across Derek and his lusty intern – "

"Nancy," Addison says, more firmly this time. "Don't call her that."

"Why not? Isn't it what she is?"

"No, it's not," Derek says shortly.

"It's not Meredith's fault," Addison says. She's still looking with discomfort between Derek and Nancy.

"You're defending her?" Nancy asks, turning to Addison.

"Yes, I am," Addison says simply.

Nancy blinks. "Well," she says, taking some time to rearrange her scarf before she continues, "you're certainly more … open-minded than I am, Addie. If John slept with an intern, I wouldn't be so friendly with her."

"And if you slept with John's best friend, what do you think he would do?" Derek snaps.

Hurt crosses Addison's face at his words and it's clear who felt that blow, even if he was swinging at Nancy. They're all silent for a moment.

He considers apologizing to Addison – saying something, at least – but the stubborn little brother in him refuses, not wanting to give Nancy the satisfaction of thinking his apology could be directed her way.

"I have patients," Addison says at last, stiffly, and she's gone before he can respond or Nancy can point out a third use of the same phrase she attacked when Derek spoke it.

Now brother and sister are alone, and Nancy has the nerve to look at him like he's done something wrong.

"Nice," he tells her sarcastically before she can go on the offensive again. "Very nice, Nancy."

"And you?" She raises an eyebrow, though she sounds more tired than she did before. "How's that marital reconciliation going?"

"Shut up," he says, but he's tired too.

"You shut up," she says without real malice, and then they stand there face to face, two attendings on too little sleep instead of bickering siblings.

"Maybe I shouldn't have come," Nancy says finally.

He can tells he's waiting for him to say, _no, of course you should have, I'm glad you came,_ but for the second time in a matter of minutes he says just little enough to get his message across and is rewarded with one more expression of hurt.

But this time – this time, he's not going to feel sorry about it.

..

"Derek's sorry," Addison says.

"Really." Nancy arches a perfectly groomed brow. "You must be psychic."

"Not psychic." Addison sips her tea. "Just married."

"Potato, po-tah-to." Nancy sighs. "He's still holding a grudge over Mark, then?"

"Can you blame him?" Addison asks honestly. She finds herself recalling Savvy's words from over a month ago now. "It's not like he's mad that I – dragged him to the opera or threw out his old fishing vest."

"I know what you did," Nancy reminds her. "And so does Derek. We all do."

 _Except you don't. Only two people know._

She feels cold again at the reminder of her deception, shivering lightly – and Nancy, the experienced obstetrician, doesn't miss it.

"Addie? What's wrong?" Nancy rests a gentle hand on her arm.

"Nothing." She sighs. "Just …"

"Husbanditis," Nancy says knowingly. "I've seen it in plenty of patients."

"Yeah?" Addison smiles at her through the beginning of tears her sister-in-law is tactful enough to ignore. "But you've never had it yourself?"

"Only every single pregnancy." Nancy gives her arm a reassuring squeeze. "It's going to be okay, Addie."

"You think?"

"I do." Nancy sips her coffee. "Derek loves you," she says quietly.

"Sometimes," Addison says, trying to sound like she's joking … but probably failing.

"He doesn't have to stay with you," Nancy reminds her, still gentle. "Seems like the lusty intern would be happy to take him back."

"Nancy … ."

"All right, all right." Conciliatory, she holds up the hand not gripping her coffee. "I'm just saying, Addie. Derek is choosing to work on the marriage. To work on it with you. He doesn't have to do that."

"I know, but – "

She stops talking. It's too close to one of the darkest fears she's holding onto.

" – but you think it might just be about the baby?"

Nancy's voice is as warm and understanding as her words are terrifying; Addison closes her eyes briefly, thinking not for the first time that if Derek saw this side of his sister he wouldn't be quite so impatient with her.

Slowly, reluctantly, she nods.

"Addie." Nancy's arm is around her. "He's here with you."

She doesn't respond.

"If you weren't together," Nancy persists, "would you keep him away from the baby?"

"Of course not."

"Well, there you go."

Nancy is always so _sure_ about everything. Addison rubs at her eyes.

"I'm being stupid," she says.

"You're being hormonal," Nancy corrects her, "which is perfectly normal, because you're pregnant." She pauses, a smile starting on her face. "You're pregnant," she repeats, and then Addison can't help smiling too.

"You're going to be a great mother, Addie."

Addison feels her cheeks flush. "Yeah, I'm not so sure about that."

"Why?"

 _Hm. I'm a liar, a cheater, and I was raised by wolves. But other than that – I'm Mother of the Year, you're right, Nance._

She just shrugs instead.

"Bizzy?" Nancy asks, her tone sympathetic.

 _Among other things._

Addison just nods.

"I don't care if your mother was Joan Crawford herself," Nancy says firmly, "I've seen you with my kids and I know you, Addie."

She swallows hard to stave off tears. "Thank you," she says quietly, "but … being an aunt is different. Obviously. When it comes to motherhood … I, uh, don't exactly have the best role models."

"Your role model doesn't have to be your mother," Nancy reminds her. "You can get … inspiration … from anywhere. For example … what about your favorite sister-in-law?" She props a hand on her hip and Addison smiles in spite of herself. "Don't write off my maternal skills just because I caught Katie having sex with her boyfriend last month. At least she's on the pill."

Addison can't help laughing at Nancy's expression. "You caught her – really?"

"Really." Nancy raises her eyebrows. "What can I say? Apparently no one in this family knows how to lock a door."

..

Catching sight of her husband's head from behind – those annoyingly perfect curls – she finds nervousness curdling in her stomach like it used to those first weeks in Seattle. When her heart would speed up to see him, wondering what it would be like: would he acknowledge her? Ignore her? Snap at her?

"Derek."

He turns around, and she's filled with sudden, ridiculous panic.

"What's wrong?" he asks immediately.

"Nothing."

He frowns.

"Did you, um, how's your day so far?" she asks.

Derek raises an eyebrow. "My day … is fine." He pauses. "Is Nancy still here?"

"As far as I know." Addison studies her shoes for a moment, not liking the tension between them.

Slowly, her hand comes to rest on her bump; feeling its small but definite contours is comforting. Derek looks puzzled, then expectant, and she realizes he might think she felt something.

She opens her mouth to tell him – _it's nothing_ – and then closes it, just letting her hand rest on her bump and leaving her face neutral.

She's being manipulative and she knows it, but she's too tired to fight it right now. The eager expression that settles on Derek's face should do for her all-guilt diet for the next few months or so.

"You felt something?" he asks immediately.

"I … thought I did." She frowns, pursing her lips. "I'm not sure. You know, it takes longer with the first one."

"You told me." He smiles at her, waiting for confirmation, and then she shakes her head. "But don't forget, you have to tell me when you feel it," he reminds her. "You promised."

"I know. I will," she assures him, preparing to recite the litany. "I'll page you the second I feel it, and – "

" – and if I'm operating, you'll come into the OR," he reminds her.

She did promise that, but in fairness she was drunk on second trimester hormones when she did it, oxytocin flowing, lying in his arms in bed and probably would have promised him anything at that point.

"Derek … "

" _Addison_ ," he says firmly. "A promise is a promise."

"Even if it's unhygienic?"

"It's not unhygienic."

"Even if it compromises patient safety?"

"I would never compromise patient safety," Derek says, frowning.

"So I don't have to come into the OR."

"Oh, you definitely have to come into the OR." He looks amused at her expression and rests a hand on her back as he guides her toward the door. "So let's hope for your sake that our son decides to make his debut kick at an opportune time."

..

"Addie isn't coming?" Nancy asks, looking around the bar.

Derek shakes his head, one hand resting on his chair, hoping he won't start regretting this choice too quickly. Addison was with a patient when he left, but he didn't tell her his plan to ask Nancy to lunch when he ran into her in the hall.

"I assumed when you called me to ask me to lunch – " Nancy stops talking, an expression on his face he can't quite read. "What is it?" he asks, a little suspicious.

"Nothing." She pulls out her chair. "Just – she does know you pretty well, doesn't she?"

"Addison?" he clarifies, and his sister nods.

He gives her a barely-there shrug – he's not certain to what Nancy is referring in the moment, but certainly you'd expect someone to know you after spending what amounts to your entire adult life with them.

Nancy just smiles at him – disarmingly – and spends more time than seems strictly necessary smoothing her skirt and adjusting the collar of her shirt before she sits down. "So," she says. "What's good here?"

"Everything is good here."

"Everything." She looks amused. "Derek, really. It's still Seattle."

 _Is it?_ he very nearly counters out loud, what with Addison's reappearance, and then Savvy's solo visit, and now Nancy.

But he manages to suppress it. He can't help thinking that Addison would appreciate his self-control.

..

"Lots of Shepherds in Seattle these days," Miranda Bailey observes.

Addison, who has been leaning against the nurses' desk paging through a chart, turns around. "Just one more than the usual."

"Your sister-in-law."

She nods.

"She seems nice," Miranda says, surprising her.

"She does?"

"… no."

Addison suppresses a smile. "Nancy, uh … she tends to speak her mind. With or without an invitation," she admits.

"So that's why I caught one of my interns calling her _McBitchy?_ "

Addison winces. "Actually, about that – "

"Don't worry, he's on fecal impactions for the rest of the day."

"He?" Addison repeats, confused.

"Karev." Miranda raises an eyebrow. "Don't tell me you're surprised."

"No … I guess I'm not."

The other doctor shakes her head. "It's always my people."

They exchange a rueful look, and then Addison reaches out to stop her from leaving.

"Miranda?"

"Yes?"

"Do I want to know what … your people … called me?"

"I don't think you do, no."

… yeah. She figured as much.

..

"So Addie's pregnant," Nancy says, casting a suspicious glance at the burger still sitting untouched on her plate.

"Addie's pregnant," Derek repeats. He can't help smiling at the words, at the reminder, even if he's still a little annoyed with his sister.

"So that means things are going well between the two of you," she prompts.

"Nancy … ."

"What? It's simple biology!"

He winces at the implication. "Things are going fine," he says tightly.

"Fine enough to make a baby," she smirks.

"Nancy, please. I'm trying to eat."

She prods her untouched burger, apparently deciding food snobbery is more important than table manners.

"Just eat already," he directs her. "It's actually good."

She picks up the burger, then sets it down. Derek braces himself.

"She seems nice," Nancy says.

"Who, Addison?"

"No. Well, her too. But I meant your lusty intern."

"Nancy." Derek takes a long sip of his drink, wishing it were alcoholic. "Don't start," he warns.

"I'm sorry." She holds up both manicured hands, almost an apology. "It seems like Addison likes her," she says tentatively.

Derek ignores it.

"Is that good, though? Or are you worried that she and the lusty intern talk about – "

"Nancy, please."

"Sorry," she says again.

"And stop calling her a _lusty intern,_ " he adds.

"It's better than _slutty intern_ ," Nancy counters, "which is how she was known in New York."

Derek grimaces.

 _That was before they knew the whole story_ , that's what he tells himself, although he can't help the anger that starts speeding up his heartbeat imagining his name, along with Meredith's, being slandered in Manhattan when he was the injured party.

"Meredith isn't slutty," he says stiffly. "She didn't know I was married when we – got together. She had no idea until Addison showed up in Seattle and told her."

Nancy looks unconvinced.

"She didn't know," he repeats, growing irritated. "Did Addison tell you she knew?"

"No, of course she didn't." Nancy leans back in her chair, lifting an eyebrow.

"Then you know she isn't slutty."

"Fine, she isn't slutty." Nancy prods her burger again. "Is that why you asked me to lunch, Derek? So you could convince me your mistress isn't slutty?"

"She's not my – " He stops talking when he sees he's attracted a few glances with his automatically raised voice.

"No, that's not why," he says, more quietly now.

Why the hell did he, though? He glances down at his plate.

"I invited you to lunch … so I could eat a burger that isn't well done."

A smile quirks the corner of Nancy's mouth at his words. "Mm, of course. John has been there. With the first one, anyway. Following all the rules with me. The second, a little less. By the fifth he was basically marinating in raw fish and red wine while I just sat there getting as big as a house." She pauses meaningfully.

"You weren't as big as a house," Derek says, his tone robotic. He knows his part.

Nancy frowns a little. "Derek."

He sighs. "Now what?"

"Now what?" she repeats, her tone a little hurt. "Derek, you've been away for months. Aren't you a little happy to see me?"

"I'm happy to see you," he tells his plate; he can't quite make eye contact.

"You're happy to see your burger, anyway," Nancy says. "Forget it," she adds, waving an airy hand when Derek, feeling a little guilty, starts to interject.

..

It's a long lunch.

Or at least it feels that way.

It feels like months before Nancy finally takes a bite of her burger. "It's not bad," she allows once she's finished chewing and patted her mouth with her napkin.

"I told you." He glances at his blackberry, willing a patient emergency or something else to summon him back to the hospital.

"We miss you, Derek," Nancy says, "even if you don't miss us."

It's a passive-aggressive one-two punch if he's ever heard one.

"I haven't been gone that long."

"You've been gone a long time." Nancy pauses. "Plus now you apparently live in Seattle."

And there it is.

He shakes his head before she can start in. "I'm not talking about this, Nancy."

"Derek, I'm not criticizing you," Nancy says, managing to sound like she believes her own words. "But you weren't around much before you left. Not like you used to."

He doesn't respond.

"Look, Derek, it's true that I haven't slept with my husband's best friend," and he feels a little ashamed when she repeats his words from earlier, "but to be fair, my husband hasn't done anything to make me want to."

Derek's eyes widen at the unfairness of this. "Seriously, Nancy? It's my fault Addison slept with Mark?"

"I didn't say that."

"Good."

Nancy is still looking at him. "She made a mistake, Derek. And now she's having your baby. You can't hold it over her head forever."

"Let's talk about something else," he suggests. "The kids. How are the kids?"

"The kids are fine," Nancy says distractedly. "But Derek, come on, it was one time, and it was _Mark._ Everyone sleeps with Mark."

"Everyone sleeps with – " He grimaces when he realizes the meaning of what she's saying. "You – "

"It's like a rite of passage."

"Enough," he says. He could do without those mental images forever.

Anyone else his supposed best friend wants to sleep with while he's at it? Maybe he should feel lucky Mark never went after his widowed mother.

Grimacing at yet another unwelcome mental image, he takes another bite of burger to clear his head. Nancy is still studying his face when he swallows.

"Derek – "

"Enough, Nancy. You're on Addison's side. You've made that very clear. Can we just eat lunch, please?"

"You're still married, Derek. There are no sides when you're married."

He raises his eyebrows, a dozen memorable spats between his sister and her husband coming to mind. "Since when is that your position?"

"Shut up." Nancy is smiling, though.

He takes another bite of his burger. If Addison asks, he'll tell her that charred burgers are delicious, but this … this is better.

Rare-medium-rare, just like nature intended.

It's almost enough to make up for –

"Derek?"

He sighs at the timbre of his sister's voice.

When he looks up, the smile has dropped off Nancy's face.

"You know Addison's not the only one to blame," she says quietly.

He shakes his head. "Nancy … drop it."

"I'm just saying. I was there too."

"Oh, really? You were there when she slept with Mark?"

He takes a deep breath, annoyed at himself for his response. Damn if Nancy doesn't remember exactly how to push his buttons. Apparently he hasn't been away from New York long enough.

"Derek … there are two people in every marriage."

"There were three in mine," he says coolly, "which was the issue." He points to her plate before she can interrupt. "Eat your lunch before it gets cold."

"You sound like Mom."

" _You_ sound like Mom."

They pause on what should feel like familiar banter, but his sister's dark eyes are narrowed in judgment.

Unfair judgment.

"Have you looked at your part in what happened, Derek?"

" _Nancy_ ," he says sharply. "Enough."

She presses her lips together and glances around the bar, apparently looking for reinforcements. He calms his trembling hands with the weight of the burger and takes another bite. How does this lunch already feel so long?

When he looks at his sister again, she's just sitting there … expectantly.

He indicates her plate again, but forces a smile this time, and she picks up her burger.

Then he hears an audible, unwelcome breath. "Derek – "

"It wasn't one time, okay?"

He didn't know he was going to say it, until he did.

Nancy pauses, burger halfway to her mouth, and then sets it down. "What do you mean?"

"Addison and Mark. It wasn't a one-night stand." It's already out, so he finishes. He's a little uncertain, sharing what his wife told him in such an intimate setting, but he barrels forward anyway, tired of second-guessing himself. It's not like he's the one who made the mistake here.

Nancy's eyes widen. "It wasn't a one-night stand?"

Slowly, he shakes his head.

"You mean they had a … relationship?"

"A relationship." Derek chuckles a little, mirthlessly, and pats his mouth with his napkin. "Mark Sloan, a relationship? You think he even knows what that word means?"

"True." Nancy twirls the stirrer of her drink – for a doctor, a rather unhygienic replacement for twiddling her thumbs, but this seems like an impolitic time to bring that up. "What do you mean, then?" she asks, raising her eyes to meet his.

"They were … together more than once." The thought nauseates him, but he pushes it down, works on accessing the anger he should feel at how she misled him at the beginning. Despite how vulnerable she seemed when she finally admitted it. "So you didn't know," he says, glancing at his sister.

"No, I didn't know."

"But you saw each other, after I left. You and Addison."

"We saw each other." Nancy looks pensive. "But … no. I had no idea."

"Okay, then." He takes a sip of his drink and then indicates his sister's plate. "Eat your burger," he says.

..

Addison wouldn't admit this to many people, but there's a certain look she's come to recognize by sheer virtue of having had so many secrets.

The look says, _I know._

It's the look she saw on Kathleen's face when she ran into her at Barney's after Derek left New York.

 _I know what you did,_ the face said, even though Addison never spoke directly to her, she knew.

And even though she only stepped into the store to catch her breath because the sheer weight of her mistakes threatened to make her pass out right there on Madison Avenue – she flushed with shame at her sister-in-law's expression. Kathleen might be a shrink but she was never a good poker player and disgust was written all over her face, clearly thinking Addison was shopping without a care in the world after breaking her brother's heart.

Why is she reliving that unpleasant memory now?

Because Nancy is striding up to her on clacking heels, fresh from lunch with Derek – which Addison was pleased to know occurred at all – and it's written all over her face.

 _She knows. Derek told her._

Even if it's just a little trickle of truth, the bits and pieces her husband found out the night they spent at the hotel together that feels a hundred years ago now – it's still something.

"How was lunch?" Addison asks weakly as her sister-in-law approaches.

"Lunch was interesting," Nancy says.

They trade gazes, playing the eye contact version of chicken.

"You didn't tell me," Nancy says finally.

"I know." Addison traces the edge of the chart in her hand.

"I saw you, Addie. And I talked to you. More than once."

She doesn't have to say when she means.

"I know. Nance, I'm sorry, I was – "

 _Lying. I was lying._

 _And I still am._

She closes her eyes for a moment.

"Upset," Nancy says. "You were upset, I know. I remember."

Of course she does. They met for an awkward drink made more awkward when Addison cried into her gin and tonic.

"Addie."

She looks up.

"You should have told me."

"I'm sorry," she says again.

"I looked like an idiot when Derek told me," Nancy says, frowning.

 _That's nothing compared to what I'll look like when you find out what really happened._

"I'm sorry, Nance. I didn't even tell Derek," she admits. "Not at first, not until … not until Seattle."

Nancy considers this.

"I just wanted to forget it happened," she says, and maybe there's something in her voice giving away its absolute honesty here because Nancy nods – reluctant satisfaction – and lets it go.

..

Addison can't let it go, though.

It's a miniature preview of what's to come with the bigger, heavier, heartier secrets and it sends her into the first bout of nausea she's had in weeks.

Derek buys her a ginger ale and sits on a wrought iron bench with her in the mild spring breeze, a hand resting on her back, and she doesn't have the heart to tell him his concern is making her feel worse.

"Derek?"

His eyes are soft when he looks at her.

"I'm glad you had lunch with Nancy," she says, truthfully.

He winces a little. "Addison … I should tell you something."

"I already know." She smiles sadly at him.

"Of course Nancy ran straight back to tell you." Derek shakes his head, grimacing. "Typical."

"She has information, she shares it," Addison recites. It's the family mantra when it comes to Nancy, and unless HIPAA prevents it, it's infallibly true in her experience.

He nods, his eyes soft as he looks at her, and she didn't think anything could make her feel worse, but –

"I'm sorry," he says.

 _That's my line._

"Don't be," she says, her throat dry; she clears it and he passes her the bottle of ginger ale so she can have another sip.

"It's not her business."

"No," Addison concedes, "but it's – but you don't have to … keep it secret."

The irony – if that's irony – slaps her in the face.

"Not if you wanted to tell her, I mean."

"I didn't. I wasn't planning on it," he amends, then pauses. "She wouldn't let up," he says. " _It was one time, it was one time._ "

They both pause, and Addison swallows hard, uncomfortable at the memory of their last night in New York.

 _It was one time! I know that's what everyone says, I know that's what always gets said, but it's true!_

… it was true, that night. That was the last time it was true.

She clings to that so she can meet his eyes without throwing up.

"I'm sorry too," she says softly. "Nancy is – "

"Not easy to censor," he finishes for her. "I know. I didn't think you sent her to yell at me."

She smiles a little, glad at least that he doesn't blame her to that.

Even if she's actually to blame for worse.

He's paged before she can say anything else.

But he hesitates, a hand on her back, before he stands up. "You sure you're all right?"

He tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear when she looks up at him and not for the first time she thinks it might actually have been easier when he hated her.

"I'm okay. Really."

..

"Nancy's leaving today," Derek announces the next morning, though she's not sure which of them he's trying to convince.

"Nancy's leaving today," Addison repeats, frowning into the mirror as she smooths down her hair. Nancy wasn't kidding about the humidity.

"No more double uteruses."

"None that I know of," Addison says.

"Mm." Derek doesn't look fully convinced.

"It wasn't such a bad visit, overall," she adds tentatively. "Was it?"

Derek spends longer than he probably needs to rinsing out his coffee cup.

"It was fine," he says at last, and she can't be too annoyed about it since he leans in to kiss her after that, tasting of the coffee she sorely misses.

"More," she says when he starts to pull away, drawing him back.

"You're using me," he says, laughing. "Just drink a decaf, Addison."

"It's not the same thing." She pauses, trying to figure out how to be honest without being disloyal. "It was good to see Nancy," she admits.

It's all she says – she doesn't mention how it helped to soothe the hurt of what felt like Nancy's snubbing her since Derek left New York.

"I know," Derek says, which isn't exactly _I agree_ – but isn't nothing, either. "Actually, speaking of Nancy … I might have a solution about telling the rest of the family."

"I'm listening," she says.

He lifts his eyebrows when he's finished telling her. "What do you think?"

"I think it's perfect."

" _He's_ perfect," Derek corrects her, a hand resting on her bump through the fabric of her dress. She closes her eyes, letting his words wash over her, trying to force down the fears she reluctantly admittedly to Nancy.

"He is perfect," she agrees. "Although not so perfect that he didn't require two NIPTs."

"He's a perfectionist," Derek says seriously. "He wanted to perform his best on the test."

"Ah. I knew there was a logical reason."

..

"Wait a minute." Nancy raises an eyebrow, oversized sunglasses propped on her head. "You're serious. I really can?"

One hand resting on the handle of her neat rolling suitcase, she looks doubtfully from husband to wife.

"You really can," Derek says.

She beams in response.

"So you _are_ going to miss me," Nancy says triumphantly, turning to Derek. "Aren't you."

"You want the truth?"

"Always."

"No." Derek laughs at her expression. "Nancy – come on. I'm glad you came."

"That's probably the best I can hope for," Nancy muses.

"It probably is." Derek leans in and kisses her cheek.

"But I can tell people." She raises her eyebrows.

"You can – and you should." Addison smiles at her. "It will save us a lot of calls."

Nancy hugs Addison warmly, leaving a little space between them, he notices – which makes him smile. It's a miniaturized version of what they've been doing all this time … making room for the baby.

"You'll tell me when he kicks," Nancy is instructing Addison, who nods obediently.

"I'll tell you when he kicks."

"And ultrasounds. I want ultrasounds." Nancy frowns at Derek, who raises his eyebrows with helpless apology.

"You can have ultrasounds," Addison assures her, resting a placating hand on Derek's shoulder.

"And I want to deliver him."

"Ooh, Nancy, you really need to get going so you don't miss your flight." Derek steps forward to rest a hand on his sister's shoulder. "I'll walk you out," he offers.

Nancy leans in to whisper something to Addison he can't hear – hopefully not about his son's delivery – and then follows him toward the door.

He waits with her for her car, some old vestige of chivalry Addison would want him to perform, he's certain of it, and Nancy seems approving too.

"Have a good flight."

"Thank you." She watches with arms folded crossly as the driver loads her bags, but apparently can't find anything to critique.

Then turns back to Derek.

"I'm happy for you," she says quietly. "You're going to be a wonderful father."

It's misty outside, a light rain starting to fall, which is probably why the shape of the car blurs a bit in front of his eyes as he watches it drive away.

..

"There are a lot of things you can say about Nancy," he announces.

"Derek," Addison scolds, apparently deciding he's going to go with something negative. She's sitting across from him on the bed that night, legs crossed under her, Doc stretched out half-asleep between them.

"What?" he makes a face, defensive. "My point is … you can't say that Nancy wastes time."

Addison smiles at this, holding up her blackberry – the one that's been buzzing all evening. "No, I guess you can't."

Nancy certainly took their offer to tell the rest of the family seriously.

And this did two things, as far as he's concerned: take the pressure off Addison, who seemed torn about how to approach it, and actually move them forward.

 _Forward_ indeed, since one of the emails was from his mother – apparently Tess's email lesson took hold. A nice email too, even if Addison preferred to focus on the negative rather than the positive.

( _After all these years_ , _I'd almost given up on hearing this great news from the two of you_ – that's what his mother wrote, in part, and Addison claims his mother was calling her old rather than expressing her genuine excitement.)

"Is that – quiet?" Addison asks now, holding up her silent blackberry.

Derek tilts his head, listening closely, and Addison laughs. They've already read emails from Liz, three of her children, and two of Kathleen's, as well as fielded calls from Kathleen herself and gone through his mother's long missive – she may be emailing in the 21st century, but the length of her letters is pure 20th.

"You think we're done for tonight?" Addison asks doubtfully.

"I don't know," Derek says. "We haven't heard from the Pope yet."

"Mm." Addison makes a face at him. "Derek … we did tell Nancy she could tell people."

" _People_ , yes. Everyone she encountered at JFK, no."

Addison smiles. "She's excited."

"A woman with five children, excited about a baby? It must be a special baby."

Addison's eyes are bright when she looks at him. "Actually … it is."

"Well." He smiles at her, his throat feeling thick for some reason. "Then I guess we have to forgive Nancy for telling everyone in the tri-state area the second she stepped off the plane."

With that, her blackberry buzzes again.

"Now who?"

"This is from Kyle."

Nancy's son, predictably excited another boy is joining the family.

"Oh, let me hear." Addison grins at him. "No, wait – how many times does he say _boy?_ "

Derek frowns, concentrating as he reads. "Eight. No – eleven, if we count _male_. Do we count _male?_ "

"I think we do count male."

Her blackberry buzzes again and they both laugh.

"Nancy is better than an APB." Addison shakes her head, smiling. "Ooh, this one's from Corbin."

Kathleen's husband, famous for being a Man of Few Words. Not that anyone in the family could blame him, being married to Kathleen.

"How many words?"

"Two," Addison says, sounding disappointed. "Not his best. _Wonderful news,_ " she reads.

"He didn't sign it?"

"Does his email signature count?" Addison asks, looking amused. "He sent it from his work account."

Of course he did.

Her blackberry buzzes again and she flashes him a smile before looking down at it to check her email.

He watches, confused, as the smile drops off her face.

"Addie?"

She looks up.

"What's wrong?"

She doesn't respond.

"It's not another congratulations?" he prompts.

"Oh. No, it's … nothing," she says, and he watches as she pushes her mouth back into a smile. "Let me hear your mother's email again, Derek."

He reads it to her once more, and she makes all the same appreciative sounds she did the first time he read it, but unless he's imagining it … something is different the second time.

He's just not sure what it is.

* * *

 _... to be continued. As before, you may have recognized some lines, as well as the patient with two uteruses, from 3.08. If you read this long, long chapter - and if you're glad QPQ Sunday is totally a thing again - I hope you'll review and let me know. Thank you - always - for reading and for being great. See you next week!_


	19. Outbox

_**A/N: Happy Sunday! I couldn't let Mother's Day go by without a QPQ update. I don't think I've ever written a chapter like this, but last week's family news means that the Shepherd inboxes are blowing up all over the place. This was a little challenging to do with site limitations, but hopefully it will be easy to follow. It's a little different, a little light, and I truly hope you enjoy this look into Addison's emails ...**_

* * *

 _ **Outbox**_

 _Many parents-to-be wait until the end of the first trimester — around week 13 — to tell friends and family about their pregnancy. A number of factors influence why people wait until this time to share the news. Still, the most important part of your decision should revolve around what makes you the most comfortable._

-Healthline

* * *

To: grandma14times  
From: addisonmshepherd

Mom – thanks for the sweet email, and for all your suggestions about where to buy modest maternity clothes. I suppose it's true that "hemlines just keep getting shorter" and "there's no reason to show the world your private business." I do understand that "in [your] day, women didn't parade around in bathing suits until the baby crowned." Your offer to keep an eye out for me at the Discount Barn is very tempting, but I should probably shop closer to home. Just for convenience's sake, of course.

Love,  
Addison

PS – you're going to need a new email handle pretty soon.

* * *

To: grandma14times  
From: addisonmshepherd

An email handle is – the name you use. For your email.

You should probably just ask Tess to walk you through it again.

* * *

To: goaliegobluebirds90  
From: addisonmshepherd

Kyle, thank you for your sweet email. I agree with you that a "little more testosterone" might be just what next Christmas needs. It's so thoughtful of you to offer to teach the baby how to play hockey, though I have to disagree that boys who don't play hockey are "total wimps" or "little girls" … not that there's anything wrong with being a little girl, as I'm sure your sisters and cousins would agree.

Love,  
Aunt Addie

* * *

To: savannahmoore  
From: addisonmshepherd

You asked how things have been going since Nancy broke the news? Well … my mother-in-law thinks I dress like a pregnant whore and she hasn't even seen a picture yet.

PS – I miss you.

* * *

To: kshepherdbyron  
From: addisonmshepherd

Kathy, thanks for reaching out again.

Truthfully, I'm not sure I know much about "prenatal inherited bicoastal trauma," but I'll be sure to look into it before the baby's born. In my obstetrical experience, I haven't heard about any prenatal psychiatric conditions affecting birth weight or preterm complications, but I appreciate your raising the issues. I understand it's frustrating that ACOG has not taken your concerns into account, but I think I will turn down your kind offer of serving as a case study – since we live on opposite coasts now, it seems like it would be geographically difficult.

Give my love to Nick and the kids.

Love,  
Addison

* * *

To: nancyshepherd  
From: addisonmshepherd

Nance – of course I don't mind that you told everyone so quickly. We asked you to do it. We thought it would be more efficient this way. It was so good seeing you in Seattle. And yes, your guess is right, Mom has been threatening – I mean offering – to send me "modest" maternity clothes.

Love, A.

* * *

To: kshepherdbyron  
From: addisonmshepherd

Kathleen, I do believe you that prenatal inherited trauma is real. Those weren't ironic quotation marks. And even if they were, I have pregnancy brain, so it shouldn't count.

A.

* * *

To: kshepherdbyron  
From: addisonmshepherd

Kath, with all due respect, you know I work with pregnant women every day, and "pregnancy brain" isn't a psychiatric condition either.

A.

PS _Those_ quotation marks were ironic.

* * *

To: doctorelizabeth  
From: addisonmshepherd

Lizzie, I'm sorry it's taken me a few days to respond. I don't actually think it's because the internet is slower in the Pacific Northwest, but I'll keep that in mind.

And thank you for pointing out that in your experience as a family practitioner, only children are "weird." I will keep that in mind, too, as we consider the size of our family.

Give my love to Ed and the kids.

A.

* * *

To: doctorelizabeth  
From: addisonmshepherd

Yes, Liz, I'm already aware that I'm "no spring chicken" and "not getting any younger." It seems prudent, though, to wait until this pregnancy is finished before starting another one – even if that risks having a "weird only child."

* * *

To: kshepherdbyron  
From: addisonmshepherd

Kathy, I appreciate your concern, but no, I don't think I'm experiencing second trimester mood swings that are causing me to overreact _or_ overuse ironic quotation marks. I know a fair bit about pregnancy. I also know that Liz is the one who told you I was using ironic quotation marks.

PS I'm not sure if you've noticed Molly's new user picture, but you might want to look into that instead.

* * *

To: swimmerbabe93  
From: addisonmshepherd

Molly, I'm sorry you feel "censored" and "judged," but I really do think this user picture suits you better than the other one. No pun intended.

Love,  
Aunt Addie

* * *

To: ameliashepherd  
From: addisonmshepherd

Amy, it's so good to hear from you. Congratulations on your second-round fellowship interview. I know of Ginsberg by reputation, of course, but your brother would know more since it's his field. What I do know is that she's tough on applicants and tougher on her fellows – but I have no doubt you can handle it. If you want to talk it through, I'm sure Derek would be happy to call you.

Love,  
Addie

PS Of course the baby can call you "Auntie Amelia" or whatever else you want.

* * *

..

"You told Amy I'd call her?" Derek leans against the nurses' station with a cup of coffee in one hand.

"I told Amy you'd call her." She frowns, glancing at the chart she's carrying. "Derek, she's your sister."

"I know that."

"And she's a neurosurgeon."

"Amy?" He shakes his head. "Amy's not a neurosurgeon. She's a – a resident."

"A resident who's almost a fellow." Addison sighs. "Derek …she's interviewing with Ginsberg."

" _Ginsberg_." Derek raises his eyebrows. "That should be interesting. Assuming they don't kill each other before the second round."

"She's already on the second round. And I thought you could talk to her and – what?" Addison props her hands on her hips. "Derek, she's your sister."

"You're repeating yourself." He takes a sip of coffee. "Fine – I'll talk to her."

"Don't do it for me." Addison taps the pendant on her necklace. "Do it because this year's fellows are next year's attendings and then they become attendings and then the next thing you know – "

" … we're old," he finishes for her.

"Speak for yourself," she says.

He makes a face at her, she makes one back, and for a moment she feels like they're back in the library teasing each other over a stack of notecards and stale deli cart coffee.

"Derek – "

"I'll call her."

"Thank you." She leans in for a kiss. "We appreciate it."

"We – like you and Amy, we?"

"No." She gestures toward her midsection.

"Oh, _that_ we." Derek pauses. "So he's just on your side? You always have two votes?"

She shrugs innocently.

"That's very convenient." But he's smiling, looking amused, and then he's paged and she hardly has time to add, _be nice when you talk to Amy._

 _.._

* * *

To: ameliashepherd  
From: addisonmshepherd

Hi Amy – I'm so glad to hear Derek called you! And that the conversation went well. And that you're feeling good about the interview. And, of course, that you both still remember exactly how many of his model soldiers you flushed down the toilet in 1977.

Love,  
Addie

* * *

To: theresamiddleton  
From: addisonmshepherd

Tess – thank you for explaining email handles to Grandma, honey.

Oh, and I really think your mom would be fine taking you herself – but yes, your new birth control is in the mail.

Love,  
Aunt Addie

PS Next time you're giving Grandma an email tutorial, you might want to advise her to keep it under twenty pages.

* * *

To: grandma14times  
From: addisonmshepherd

Dear Mom,

Good to hear from you again. Yes, time is flying quickly, and yes, I'm also sorry we haven't been able to see you. As for sending a picture – well, I'll see what I can do. And I appreciate your offer to mail me the receiving blanket you used when you brought Derek home from the hospital. I do remember you mentioned once or twice over the years that you crocheted it yourself at eight months pregnant while you had three little girls running around the house. I guess you have a point that "women today have a little too much free time," although it doesn't really feel like that around here – I spend quite a while answering emails, in between patients.

Love,  
Addie

* * *

..

"What's that about a blanket?"

"Nothing." Addison sets her blackberry down on the bed. "You know … I think I'm done for the night. Eyestrain."

"Well, we can't have eyestrain." He smiles at her, turning onto his side and propping up on an elbow. "It's late, anyway, and you were operating early."

"So you don't think I have too much free time?"

Derek looks confused.

"Never mind." She leans in to kiss him. "Sleep … sounds very good."

She's not surprised at all when he smiles at her in that almost-shy way that he has been since this tradition began – with something like wonder, something boyish in his eyes that makes her picture what their son might look like until her vision blurs with something very different from eyestrain.

"Good night, baby," Derek says quietly, resting a palm on the growing bump. She eases back against the pillow, enjoying the contact along with his words. Outside, a light rain is falling against the trailer. "Everyone's very excited about you," Derek continues, directing his words to their baby. "Which is why your mom has a lot of emails to answer."

"True," Addison interjects.

" … but that's just because you have a big family, and everyone's very happy you're here."

It's charitable, but not entirely hard to believe.

She'll take it.

"… but not as happy as we are," Derek finishes, then pauses. "I love you," he adds, directing his words to her belly.

Well, she's not made of stone.

She kisses him, hard, when he looks up and he laughs a little with surprise at the contact. Finally they settle into a comfortably messy sort of spoon and his hand cups her belly again.

"Are you going to do this every night?" she asks the darkened room, her voice a little husky.

"Try and stop me," he teases, his scruffy jaw scratching hers as he tips his head to kiss her cheek.

 _I don't want to stop you. Not ever._

* * *

..

To: grandma14times  
From: addisonmshepherd

Dear Mom,

Thank you so much for sending the links to all those articles, and then sending them again when I didn't respond the same day. It must have taken a while to gather all those sources. Since you asked … no, I'm not sure, in my medical opinion, that "immodest maternity clothing" is responsible for the high rate of cesareans in American hospitals.

And of course I know you value "both kinds of grandbabies" the same amount. I'm not sure why Chrissy accused you of "male favoritism," but I'm sure she didn't mean to offend you. You know how passionate she gets about things.

Love,  
Addie.

* * *

To: patriarchysmash  
From: addisonmshepherd

Dear Chrissy,

Thank you for your email congratulating us on our "heterocentric advancement." I know it might be "disappointing" that we're expecting a boy, but I'm not sure that necessarily means he's "just another male oppressor" – at least not while he's still in the womb. As for your question, I'm not sure whether he "at least identifies as a feminist" since he can't talk yet. But since he'll be surrounded by strong women, I think he'll come out just fine.

Love,  
Aunt Addie

PS. Your mom told me you're taking classes at Sarah Lawrence this summer – that's great.

* * *

To: patriarchysmash  
From: addisonmshepherd

Chrissy, I really don't think your unborn cousin is planning to oppress you, but I will do everything in my power to make sure that is very low on his to-do list. Right now, that list is mostly just figuring out how to move his joints. I certainly don't disagree with you that sexism is a serious problem, including in the workplace, but I don't think I would agree that I myself am "a major sexist."

Love,  
Aunt Addie

* * *

..

She pauses in front of the mirror, adjusting the hem of her blouse. It's not a maternity blouse, but it's not _not_ one, either. It's … empire.

"Derek?" She waits for him to look over, which he does, setting his coffee cup in the tiny sink. "Am I sexist?" she asks.

"Yes," he says immediately.

Her eyes widen. " _Yes?_ "

"Yes, of course you are." He pauses, looking confused at her expression. "Isn't that a … good thing?" he asks.

"No, it isn't!"

She ignores him for most of the ride to the ferry, until he rests a hand on her seat belt buckle in the parking lot. "I thought you were asking me if you were _sexy._ "

All right, she'll let this one slide, but only because it's cool to the point of chill on the deck of the ferry and she needs to borrow some of his body heat.

As long as Chrissy never finds out that her favorite uncle heard the word _sexist_ as _sexy_ …

Derek rests a hand on the buzzing blackberry in her pocket.

"Still dealing with the Nancy fallout?"

"No. Well, yes." She turns her head to kiss his cheek. "But it's the kids, you know. They're excited."

* * *

To: patriarchysmash  
From: addisonmshepherd

Dear Chrissy,

While I can't promise you that Uncle Derek and I "will absolutely not, under any circumstances, have four more boys," it's highly unlikely – if flattering – at my age to think we could manage it. And yes, I do realize that if we did have four more boys, we would sway the ratio of Shepherd cousins by gender.

Love,  
Aunt Addie

PS I looked at all the pictures you sent and I like them all, but I think the motorcycle boots in the fourth picture are my favorites. And yes, if your mom disagrees, you can add them to your Christmas list.

* * *

To: ladyhawkslyssa  
From: addisonmshepherd

Dear Alyssa,

Amazing soccer victory! I'm so proud of you. As for your question, no, I don't know if your new cousin will play soccer, but I know where to send him if he has questions.

Love,  
Aunt Addie

* * *

To: grandma14times  
From: addisonmshepherd

Dear Mom,

I'm glad you liked the picture we sent. If you think it's "flattering," then you should definitely tell Derek, since he took it. If it's "a little blurry," well, he was just out of an eight hour surgery. I spend quite a bit of each work day around pregnant women, so no, I suppose I didn't think that I looked "rather far along for not even sixteen weeks." Then again, as you suggested, maybe that's just because of my "skintight dress."

Love,  
Addie

* * *

To: nancyshepherd  
From: addisonmshepherd

Nancy, of course I don't blame for Mom's reaction to the pregnancy picture, or to anything else. I'm sure she meant well. I do remember that you only gained four pounds in the first two trimesters for your first two pregnancies. And yes, I know that can't be so bad, since Katie got into Harvard. And yes, of course she can email me – you don't have to ask, you know that.

Love,  
Addie

PS I wouldn't call "sucking on ice cubes" a "pregnancy nutrition tip," but I will keep it in mind.

* * *

To: catherineforrest  
From: addisonmshepherd

Katie, please don't apologize for emailing. I hope you know I'm happy to talk to you about college anytime – I may not be living in the city anymore, but you can email me (like you did this time) or call. As for your question, I chose against Harvard in the end because my brother was already there, and I needed a little distance. Since you have four little siblings, I probably don't have to tell you about how important distance can be. And no, I definitely don't think it's a reason for you to turn down the offer. Plus, who wants to live in New Haven if they can avoid it?

Love,  
Aunt Addie

* * *

To: patriarchysmash  
From: addisonmshepherd

Dear Chrissy,

When I "suggested to [your] cousin that living in New Haven was somehow undesirable," I didn't intend to offend. I spent four very enjoyable years there myself, and I can even remember most of them. Cambridge is a little overrated – that's all.

Love,  
Aunt Addie.

* * *

To: kshepherdbyron  
From: addisonmshepherd

Dear Kathleen,

Yes, Chrissy and I have been emailing. And yes, I understand the "activism-driven ego shifts inherent to the latter stages of feminine adolescence." It's always nice to hear from her.

A.

* * *

To: nancyshepherd  
From: addisonmshepherd

Okay, Nance, has Chrissy ever heard you say, _a minute on the lips, nine months on the pregnant hips?_ Because I think that's a little … dare I say it … sexist?

* * *

To: ladyhawkslyssa  
From: aaddisonmshepherd

Dear Alyssa,

Well, you know I only have a brother, so I can't say for sure that "older sisters are the most annoying in the whole world." But I do understand the general issue. And no, I didn't know that Chrissy hid all of Madison's Judy dolls because they "promote a sexist agenda and an unhealthy body image."

That said, Judy dolls _are_ unrealistic – like cartoons – and you and your sister are much prettier than Judy dolls anyway.

Love,  
Aunt Addie

PS No, I haven't heard of "Fallout Boy," but I will try to find one of his/their songs since you recommend them so highly.

* * *

To: patriarchysmash  
From: addisonmshepherd

Dear Chrissy,

I'm sorry I upset you. Next time, I will be sure to say "pretty smart" instead of just pretty. I do appreciate that you "love [me] in spite of how deeply [I] reflect the poisonous sexism inherent to [my] generation." I love you, too. And I'll keep an eye out in the mail for the CD you burned for us to play for the baby. That was very thoughtful.

Love,  
Aunt Addie

* * *

To: nancyshepherd  
From: addisonmshepherd

Nance, I love the dresses you sent. I can't send a picture in them, because they don't fit. Frankly, I'm not sure they would have fit before I got pregnant, but … they're great. I'll send them back to you if you'd like, even though I realize, as you said, that you "started wearing them twenty-two weeks in" and so they probably wouldn't fit you now.

And I _really_ love the spa certificate you sent. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to talk Derek into a couples' massage, but maybe I can just get both halves of the massage myself.

Love,  
Addie

* * *

To: savannahmoore  
From: addisonmshepherd

Okay, Sav, how did you find the best maternity boutique in Seattle? I'm not sure I'm psychologically ready for it … and I really don't want to know what Kathleen would say about that. But physically? I might be just about ready. Especially since Nancy sent me some of her old maternity dresses and I don't think I could get them to close on a dare. I guess it's time to find some of my own. I wish we could shop together. Since I already gave away my pregnancy to every single person here, I might as well make up for it with wardrobe. And since you asked, no, everyone here has been great about the pregnancy. I remember some of those awful stories you told me about partners at your firm. I'm glad it's not like that here. I've known Richard forever, and he's as invested in my career as I am. He wouldn't treat me any differently just because of pregnancy.

Give my love to Weiss. And to Barney's … in that order.

Love,  
Addie

* * *

To: kshepherdbyron  
From: addisonmshepherd

Kathy – thank you so much for your gifts. You really didn't have to do that. The onesie is adorable, and so is the stuffed brain. Your brother will definitely appreciate that one. As for the books, I hadn't heard of _Healing the Neurotic Newborn_ or _Journey to a Reformed Maternal Id_ , but they seem like interesting reads. I'll add them to the pile.

Love,  
Addie

* * *

To: kshepherdbyron  
From: addisonmshepherd

Kath, how can you accuse me of using ironic quotation marks this time when I didn't even _use_ quotation marks?

And yes, I love you too.

* * *

To: savannahmoore  
From: addisonmshepherd

Okay, Sav – that's it.

I've had it.

I'm going to have to quit surgery to make time for 24/7 emails with the Shepherds. It's been a full time job since Nancy left. Did you know that tight pregnancy dresses can cut off the baby's circulation? (That was my mother-in-law, and it's not true.) And did you know that the best cure for stretch marks is not gaining weight at all? (That was Nancy, and it probably _is_ true, but I'll certainly never know at this rate.) And did you know that if you don't start Freudian analysis in the womb, your baby will come out crooked? (That was Kathleen, of course, and it's paraphrased, but you get the idea.)

… and that's just a teaser. Come back to Seattle and you can hear all the rest.

Did I mention I miss you?

Love,  
Addie

PS Sixteen weeks yesterday – time flies when you're busy emailing the Shepherds.

* * *

..

She's just pressed send when she glances up to see Derek approaching her with a paper cup in hand.

"I hope that's something strong." She raises her eyebrows above her glasses.

He glances at her blackberry. "Not as strong as you probably need if you've been emailing with the … hordes."

She takes a sip – hot chocolate, just the right amount of strength.

"Thank you." She leans in for an appreciative kiss, only to notice that Derek's attention seems diverted over her shoulder.

 _Here we go._

Pushing down the taste of bad memories, she looks behind her to see who's distracted her husband, even if she already knows who –

"Addison," Preston Burke says in his warm way, approaching them, and then nodding rather formally to Derek.

Okay, that's not exactly what she expected. Maybe Derek's tastes are changing – Preston's certainly not a bad looking man. Not at all. In fact –

Derek clears his throat next to her.

"Preston," she says quickly, casting a quick smile at her husband – who is now frowning suspiciously in the other surgeon's direction.

"Where have you been?" he asks.

Preston lifts an eyebrow. "Do you mean … with whom?"

Addison looks from one of them to the other, trying to piece it together.

"I was meeting with Richard," Preston says smoothly. "As I'm sure you're aware, since you were meeting with him an hour before I was."

"You were?" Addison turns to Derek now. "You didn't mention – "

Derek looks a little embarrassed.

Preston looks – like he'd rather be anywhere else.

"Addison," he says, nodding in a friendly way, pausing to level eye contact at her husband. "I'm sure I'll see you soon," he tells Derek.

"Okay … are you going to tell me what that was about?"

" _That_ … was about chief."

"What's wrong with the Chief?"

"Not _the_ Chief … chief. Richard was meeting with us to talk about … chief."

"To talk about chief." Addison's eyes widen as she takes it in. "Wait, Richard – met with you both? To talk about chief?"

Derek nods. "Turns out he was grooming Burke even though he told me when I came out here – " He stops, looking at her, then shakes his head. "Don't tell me he told you that – Richard is unbelievable."

"What's so unbelievable, Derek? You think I can't be chief?"

Derek opens his mouth, then closes it again. "Richard said he was meeting with all the candidates today."

"Oh, did Richard say that?" She holds up her blackberry, which helpfully buzzes with yet another Shepherd email. "I've been checking my correspondence pretty closely these days, and Richard didn't set up a meeting with me."

Her husband is avoiding her gaze again.

"Derek … what aren't you telling me?"

"Nothing, Addie." He smiles neutrally. "I have patients." He pockets his own blackberry and leans into kiss her, but she ducks, avoiding it.

"Not until you tell me what's going on, you don't. _Derek._ "

He sighs. "Richard – he said he assumed you weren't interested in chief, since you're pregnant."

"… Richard said _what?"_

* * *

To: savannahmoore  
From: addisonmshepherd

I'm swearing off men forever (other than the one I'm carrying). And I'm about to throw a very sharp shoe up at the glass ceiling. So … how soon can I talk you into flying out here again?

* * *

 _... to be continued! This, and other matters, to be dealt with in Chapter 20. Thank you so much for reading! See you soon and have a great week, everyone!_


	20. In Time

_**A/N - hey, here we go, QPQ Sunday, Seattle Time! It might be a little later on the East Coast - not to mention in so many other places - but we made it PST. Thank you as always for reading and for all your wonderful comments on the last chapters. I know we had some diversions with the two-part Nancy chapter and then the Mother's Day email session. You are a wonderful group of readers and I truly hope you enjoy this chapter.**_

* * *

 ** _In Time_**

 _Gestational Age: Sixteen weeks, six days_  
 _Baby is the Size of: an avocado (delicious)_  
 _Baby's Mother is: annoyed (not at baby)  
Baby's Father is: apparently part of a sexist conspiracy to keep baby's mother from achieving peak professional status  
Baby's Father is also: denying it  
Baby's Extended Family (Paternal) is: too tech-savvy for their own good, but happy  
Baby's Extended "Family" (Maternal) is: thankfully still quiet  
_ _Baby's Dog is: hanging in there  
The Other Shoe is: also still hanging in there (for now)_

 _.._

* * *

"Addison – do you think I have a deep voice?"

She glances across the bed at her husband. "Compared to what?"

"Excuse me," Derek says, sounding a little annoyed, "is that how you'd like me to respond the next time you ask me if one of your dresses makes you look fat?"

She closes the medical journal she's been reading, raising an eyebrow. "Thin ice, Derek."

"Thin, huh? Interesting choice of words," he says, sounding amused again, and she swats him with the folded journal. He confiscates it and she lets him; she was done with the article.

"What's so important about having a deep voice, anyway?" she asks.

"Apparently it's easier for babies to hear deeper voices in the womb." Derek gestures to his laptop, which is resting, appropriately enough, on his lap. "I want to make sure the baby can hear me."

She's touched, and a little amused, all at once.

"I think your voice is deep enough that he can hear you."

"You think?"

She nods.

"He'll recognize your voice from the frequencies alone," Derek continues, his own voice laced with wonder. He frowns at her. "You don't look surprised."

"I'm a trained OB, Derek, there's not much about fetal development that surprises me after all these years."

"Not even when it's in your own body?"

"No. Well," and she turns fully on her side so she kiss him, "it's different in my own body."

"I thought so." He slides a hand down the curve of her waist, over her hip, to rest on the slight but definitely noticeable swell of their baby. She sighs a little, her head coming to rest against his shoulder. He keeps touching her, marveling at the new shape of her. He hasn't been able to keep his hands off her since her body started changing, and she'd be lying if she said it didn't surprise and thrill her in turn. And it's not just physical.

The way he watches her, looks out for her, catches up to her in the halls at work so often it makes her realize how hard he must have been working to ignore her before.

And reminds her that even if he doesn't know the whole story, it's still for his own good, and not just hers. It's in the past now. Her pregnancy, that's the present. And … it's the future too.

Everything else is the past.

Except her blackberry buzzes on the nightstand just as Derek is whispering something to her she can't quite hear, and she threads her fingers into his hair to distract both of them, pulling him against her – then laughing a little when he acts like she's breakable. It's the right time to remind him that she's not and let both of them enjoy each other.

That's the present.

That's what matters.

..

She dawdles in the shower after, as if she's back in the relaxing marble haven she designed back home and not the trailer's telephone-booth-with-a-hose.

(Okay, fine, she's well aware of the trailer's price point, which includes the fixtures – if you can call them that – but she's still neither used to nor pleased with barely being able to fit her body into the shower. And it's not like her body's going to be getting smaller, either.)

Resting a soap-slick hand on the impossible-to-ignore bump swelling her midsection, she leans her head back and lets the warm water soothe her.

 _Okay, I'm sorry I called your dad a sexist,_ she addresses the baby. _And we'll figure out this chief's race thing, okay? We'll figure out everything. You don't have to worry about anything._

She hesitates, as she often does, priming herself to see if she can feel anything yet, but – no.

She knows, scientifically, that it can take quite a while for a first-timer to feel the first fluttering kicks of pregnancy. But even though she teases Derek about his eagerness to feel it, she's not that far behind.

 _You can go ahead and kick whenever you want, baby,_ she encourages him, _remember, I promised your dad I'd grab him and let him try to feel the minute it happened. I promise I won't leave him out._

She waits, but … nothing.

That's okay.

It's comforting just to feel the contours of her bump, the promise of her pregnancy.

In the back of her mind, the tension that's lingered since the first email came, the night Nancy left.

It was short.

Very short.

 _Do you remember what next week is, Addison?_

Short, to the point … and leaving her cold.

She didn't respond.

Not to that one, and not to the next one.

She didn't respond, because there was nothing to say.

 _I'm sorry_ would be hollow and only half-true and would only bring pain – but she is, _god_ , she's sorry, she's sorry for the stress that's left her barely hungry and not sleeping well and putting the baby through the stress she's feeling when he doesn't deserve that. She's sorry for being short-fused and cranky with Derek despite his pregnancy-induced patience with her. The more irritated she's been, the more solicitous _he's_ been, which just makes her feel worse … and then the cycle begins again.

 _Do you remember what next week is, Addison?_

"Addison?"

She jumps a little, surprised at his voice and the cool air all at once.

"Sorry," he says immediately. The door closes and the cool air disappears into the warm gush of steam. She can't look at him, not right now, but she can touch him and let him touch her – his arms are warm and comforting even though she doesn't deserve them, and they stand under the spray for long moments together.

"Was that?"

He pulls back, his expression eager.

"No." She can't help smiling at his face. "Sorry, honey. He'll kick, in time, and I promise I'll tell you when I feel it."

"I know you will," he says, and those few words – that simple act of trusting her – is enough to choke her up enough that she's grateful for the shower water to hide her tears.

..

Settled in bed, one hand on her growing bump, she's calmer.

 _The second trimester is one long exhale_ – she remembers an attending saying during her reproductive endocrinology rotation.

In time, everything gets more positive.

In time, everything is less scary.

 _Everything is going to be okay_ , that phrase she's never quite believed.

Could it be true?

Nancy's visit, which seemed like it could be explosive, ended on a warm and productive note, and the extended Shepherds' response to her pregnancy has been excited and affectionate, if rather … high-maintenance.

Even the outrageous news that her boss took it upon himself to remove her from the chief's race due to her pregnancy hasn't been enough to topple the second-trimester exhale. Derek apologized sincerely for what happened, assuring her that he was caught off guard by Richard's words, and offered to accompany her to tell him off. Derek's support when she informed him she wasn't stepping down from anything – coupled with Savvy's reluctant explanation that she didn't have a case, peppered with reassuring expletives about Richard's sexism – was enough to soothe her initial anger.

 _Exhale._

Second trimester: husband and wife are both in competition for chief, though the competition itself has slowed to a crawl with Richard first swamped and then out of town.

And all that time, her pregnancy has continued to develop.

"Seventeen weeks tomorrow," Derek reminds her now.

"Yes, I haven't forgotten." Her tone is light; his excitement is endearing.

She frees a hand to stroke Doc's fur, her fingers brushing Derek's as she does.

Doc's recovery has progressed slowly, but his appetite is sufficiently restored that they're no longer worried about re-hospitalizing him, but in most cases his eyes are bigger than his stomach. Watching him gaze mournfully at a half-eaten bowl of food is heartbreaking. Addison has caught Derek more than once grilling meat for Doc outside and doling it out as if he's treating him to illicit table scraps; for whatever reason, this seems to help.

He's a surgeon with excellent bedside manner, that's all. There's absolutely no reason to cry about it, to imagine this kind of creative problem solving combined with dedication as applied to their own child.

Okay?

Doc is currently sleeping between them, snoring lustily and seeming quite satisfied with the current status of things: one of each of their hands resting in his fur for mid-slumber massage.

"He's not going to fit this well in a few months," Addison points out.

"True." Derek frowns. "Then again, I wouldn't mind getting my spot back again."

"You can share."

"With a dog?"

He sounds so offended – despite how much they both love Doc – that she laughs a little, and then he does too. Then she smiles as Derek looks at her with that now-familiar questioning expression – sweet and almost shy – before he rests a palm on her belly to talk to their son.

"Good night, baby," he says softly. "We don't mind that we haven't felt you kick yet. You take your time."

"Really?" Addison whispers.

Derek frowns at her and she presses her lips together.

"I'm going to take you fishing again soon," he continues.

Addison clears her throat.

" … as long as your mom agrees," he amends, "since right now you two are a package deal." He pauses. "Great work on the ears," he says, very seriously, "and I hope you can hear Daddy's voice." It's his turn to clear his throat now, lowering his voice slightly. "We love you," he says, and Addison has to swallow hard again.

They turn over as one when he's finished, Derek pulling her back against him and resting a hand on her belly again as if he wants to make sure he can feel its movements in their sleep.

..

In the unusual quiet of the early morning – Addison and Doc both asleep – he studies his wife's relaxed face.

She looks peaceful in profile, her breaths deep and even. Not that he would ever wonder if she's actually asleep – Addison is a terrible faker – but the obvious state of her slumber touches him anyway. With a little smile she can't see, he diverts his attention to focus on her belly.

He watches it for long moments, just in case the baby is going to visibly kick – all medical logic flying out the window when it comes to his child.

He doesn't kick, though.

"Derek?"

He jumps slightly – without looking at her face, he hadn't realized she was awake – and then they both laugh a little since it seems more like she should be the startled one to see him awake and staring at her.

"I wasn't watching you sleep," he adds, a bit defensive.

"That's what all the stalkers say." She pauses. "But if you weren't watching me sleep, what were you – oh." Her cheeks pink a little. "You're not going to be able to see it from the outside, honey. Not at seventeen weeks."

He frowns. "I know that."

"Good." She reaches out a hand, her movements still a little slow and sleepy, and rests it against his unshaven cheek, wincing a little at its texture. He works his jaw against her palm and she pretends to be annoyed: such is the old part of their routine.

As for the new part?

"Seventeen weeks," he reminds her.

"Seventeen weeks." She smiles at him. "You want to read?"

He does.

He makes coffee first, and a mug of the herbal tea Nancy sent that Addison wrinkled her nose at before admitting it was delicious.

Back on the bed, making room for each other, he takes the book from her hands.

"Tell me all about seventeen weeks," she says, her tone serious, as if she hasn't been an expert on fetal development for a decade. Somehow she's able to separate, to match his excitement, and whatever the reason for it – he appreciates it.

"Well." He lifts an eyebrow. "I'm not sure if you know this already, but I have an update on baby's hearing."

"Funny – my husband was just mentioning his hearing yesterday."

"He was?"

"Yes, but I could hardly hear it because his voice is so deep."

He makes a face at her deadpan expression, then goes back to reading, enjoying his wife's reaction to his words as much as he enjoys the flutters of his own excitement at the reality of this pregnancy.

" _At seventeen weeks' gestation, this pregnancy is starting to feel a little more real, which can cause anxiety_." He glances at Addison, who looks pensive. " _There's so much to do, it can be overwhelming._ "

She catches him looking at her. "Is this where you make fun of my lists?"

"No," he assures her. "It says right here, _pregnancy checklist._ "

"Well, there you go." She smiles at him, worrying a strand of long hair between two fingers. "What else does it say?" she asks when he doesn't continue.

" _Don't try to do everything yourself,_ " he reads – fat chance where Addison is involved – " _ask people for help, and remember that lists are just lists. Whatever you don't get done probably wasn't actually that important anyway."_ He stops reading. "Who wrote this book, an intern?"

Addison smiles, but still looks a little distracted. "What does it say about size?" she asks.

" _By now, you've probably gained somewhere around –_ "

"The baby's size, Derek!" she cuts him off, glaring.

He clears his throat. "Sorry."

He steers them well away from _one to two pounds a week_ and fully ignores _stretch marks_ – he's going to have a word with the authors one of these days – and they focus instead on the description of fetal development. Any recollection he has of his sisters' pregnancies, his own OB rotation, all of it has faded away in the overwhelming prominence of _this_ pregnancy. Everything feels new, and he devours the information in the book meant for lay parents as if he, too, has no medical training, finding himself beaming at the idea of this tiny life spending this week growing toenails.

" … _may even need a toenail trim at birth._ " He pauses. "You're going to give our son a pedicure, aren't you."

"Only if he needs it." She smiles at his expression.

..

On the ferry, he props one arm on the railing and enjoyed the fresh air. His other hand rests on his wife's back; when he turns to look at her, she's toying with her blackberry.

"Is my mother offering you more advice?" he asks, gesturing.

She doesn't answer.

"Addie?"

"Hm?" She glances up, looking distracted.

"Everything okay?"

"Of course." She pockets her blackberry and tucks her hand through his arm for the rest of the ride.

..

 _Whatever you don't get done probably wasn't actually that important anyway._

The words hang over her as she makes her way down the hall, chart in hand, trying to focus.

 _Probably wasn't actually that important anyway._

She tests the excuse: _You see, Derek, it's nothing personal: I was just so busy with my pregnancy checklist – between researching nannies and the latest controversies on the co-sleeping debate – I just didn't get around to telling you the truth._

And it's not Derek's fault, it's really not, that seeing his excitement over this baby only makes her lower The Truth even further down her pregnancy checklist. Somewhere between _after the baby graduates from college_ and _never._

It might work.

It might, except that her blackberry is a weighty lump in her pocket and it's not the inbox so much as the calendar, today.

Not the inbox.

Not this week.

..

"Am I correct that you're withdrawing from the chief's race?" Preston Burke asks mildly, approaching the board where Derek is standing – he says everything mildly, but Derek isn't fooled.

"You are not correct," Derek says, turning to offer him a tight smile.

Burke raises his eyebrows. "You're running against your wife."

"Well – so are you."

"Yes, well. She's not my wife," Burke reminds him, needlessly.

"No, she's not." Derek turns back to survey the board, and so does Burke. They stand there in silence for a few moments until a page interrupts them.

..

 _Pregnancy Checklist._

Yeah – she'll get right on that.

She's not quite sure of the book's target audience, but it seems to be women whose biggest pregnancy concerns are which darling onesies will best bring out junior's eyes and which brand of cocoa butter will minimize stretch marks sufficiently to keep the pregnant mom fuckable enough that baby #2 won't take long to follow. As in … Lizzie Shepherd-style family planning.

Some people's checklists aren't _quite_ so … printable.

 _Addison Shepherd's Pregnancy Checklist_

 **One.** _Figure out how to fit one more soul in the trailer._ Forget color-coordinated nursery sets and crib-vs.-bassinet. The good part – any leftover co-sleeping controversy dies at the doorstep of the trailer, because everyone co-sleeps there by default: Addison, Derek, Doc, several trout, and god only knows how many lurking bears. The book said babies crave closeness to their parents? You don't get much closer than everyone living in a ten-by-ten cell together. Considering how much Derek sulked about her moving her shoes in, he's going to be hard pressed to argue there's lots of room for a baby. Then again – maybe he'll try to clear out one of her shoe cabinets and they can just store the baby in there, Finland-style.

 **Two.** _Find a hair product strong enough for Seattle._ She was born and bred on the East Coast, educated there, started her career there, never intended to leave it. Why would she? She's no stranger to humidity and over a course of decades perfect a certain oh-so-casual (but actually takes serious work and even more serious financing) beach hair. Seattle, though, is something else. Whatever she does, she can't quite seem to tame that one top layer of hair that lunges for the sky in the relentless humidity, like a layer of shedding skin. Her thick pregnancy hair just seems to make it worse, drinking in extra humidity. So … this isn't strictly pregnancy-related, but if she can't get this sorted out in the next twenty-four weeks, she might as well just give up altogether.

 **Three.** _Tell her family about the pregnancy._ She's fine with her family's well-worn WASP protocol of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Do Drink. It's worked for decades (centuries?). But pregnancy is something that … well, shows. And if she sees her family any time in the next twenty-four weeks, it's going to be hard to hide her pregnancy. And if she sees them afterwards – well, there will be an extra person around. She could just wait until her breakfast-loving baby is old enough to mix a G&T for the Captain and hope for the best – but she has the feeling it's better to get ahead of it. Except … she's still not sure how.

 **Four.** _But first, figure out how to tell her family about the pregnancy._ Maybe this should be third. Maybe she should be more strategic. Maybe she doesn't want to think about it. She's considered just calling Susan, her mother's long-suffering and really rather lovely assistant, but poor Susan has enough to deal with just managing Bizzy. Addison would feel guilty throwing something else at Susan to handle when she's always been so kind. And she has enough guilt to deal with as it is. Which brings her to …

 **Five.** _Stop feeling guilty all the time._ It's not good for the baby. She knows this. It's not good for anyone. It's not easy, though. It's not possible, maybe. It's … the lead-up to number six.

 **Six.** _Tell Derek the truth._ No.

 **Seven.** _Seriously, tell him._ Yeah, she has to tell him. She has to tell him at some point, even as it eats away at her. She has to tell him and that's why there's no pregnancy checklist in any of the books that works for her – not in _Stork Week-by-Week_ or _The Miracle Pregnancy Countdown_ or _Modern Mama, Modern Baby._ She's different from the beaming multicultural array of pregnant woman on the covers and inside the illustrated books. They are diverse: they have partners of every age and ethnicity and gender – or none at all – and yet one thing seems constant: they have no heavy secrets weighing them down. They beam at their partners – or their friends, or their mothers, or their doctors – like their only worry in the world is which stretch mark will itch the most that day. But Addison's pregnancy checklist is the one she needs to worry about, and it's less a checklist than a ticking time bomb. It's memories and words and _emails._ How do you check off the truth, when it's been this long, and when it's this hard? Damned if she knows.

"Addison?"

"Hey." She turns around, paper cup of decaf in hand, to see Callie Torres. "How are you doing?" she asks, then lowers her voice. "How are – things?"

" _Things_ … are fine. Well. Things are … I'm not sure I trust _things._ But George's father is having surgery."

"Right, that's today." Addison nods – she's been distracted by the calendar, and reminds herself that others have filled calendars too. "I hope it goes well."

"Yeah. Me too." Callie looks at her for a moment. "How are you doing?"

"Me?" Addison blinks. "I'm, uh, I'm fine."

"No more Shepherds coming to visit?"

 _Of course not. Shepherds are known for their appropriate boundaries._

"Not that I know of." Addison shrugs a little. "But, you know, Nancy was a surprise. So we'll see."

"They must be excited." Callie gestures toward her midsection.

Addison nods automatically.

The thing is – they are excited. Even after 500 other grandchildren. It's just hard to wrap her mind around it, around their kind words and warm declarations of what a good mother she'll be – all of them, even Carolyn – when they don't know the truth about her.

They don't know that she was already a mother.

Not for very long.

But she wasn't a good one.

Not at all.

 _Do you remember what week this is, Addison?_

The hallway is suddenly very small.

She makes excuses to Callie – a patient waiting for her in the NICU, it's true – and escapes.

..

"How does she look?"

"She looks good," Yang says, then pauses. "For a post-op neonate," she adds.

That's about as kind as Yang is going to get, it seems, so she just nods and then takes stock of the infant herself.

"Hey, Laura." She smiles at the baby, who's a few days old now, doing well in post-op.

"Dr. Shepherd."

She looks up.

"She had some dilation of the bowels on x-ray this morning."

Addison nods, agreeing with Yang's recommendation of a barium enema, and asks her to update the mother.

"She's not here," Yang says, looking a little uncomfortable. "I guess she has the – flu or whatever. Her father is here."

"I thought he was deployed."

"Not the baby's father. Her, um, Molly's father."

Yang looks distinctly uncomfortable now.

Ah.

Molly's father – Laura Grey-Thompson's grandfather – also known as Meredith Grey's apparently-estranged father.

Addison is aware of the touchy nature of the familial connection – she's the one who discreetly had Yang swapped with Grey on Laura's case last night. She hasn't spoken directly with Meredith about her lack of involvement with the baby, nor does she plan to; first of all, it's none of her business, and second of all, she remembers Meredith's reaction to Molly's first, prenatal, visit. You don't have to spell out family dysfunction for her; like any screwed up daughter, she can smell it a mile away.

The baby, though – the baby is an innocent party, a sweet little medical marvel. And who knows: maybe she'll grow up and heal what seems to be a Grey family rift into the next generation. And maybe not. But either way – it's none of her business.

Yang will update her on the baby and in the meantime, she'll scope out a surgical plan.

"Addie!"

She turns halfway to her next patient at the familiar booming voice.

"Richard," she greets him coolly.

"You're still mad," he says.

"I'm not _mad_ ," she corrects him.

"You were mad last week."

"I wasn't mad then either." She props a hand on her hip. "Reminding you of the professional assurances you gave me isn't being _mad_ , Richard. Any more than being … irritated that you met with Preston and Derek and ignored me is … being a hysterical woman."

"Who said anything about being a hysterical woman?" Richard asks, looking nervous; she's pleased and not surprised to see that Adele has trained him well. "Addie," he says again; he's gesturing with one big hand and she follows him.

"Look," he says when they're in relative privacy around the corner. "You're in the race. The same race as the boys. The, uh, the men." He pauses. "It wasn't personal, Addie."

"You said that last week."

"It's still not personal."

"It's personal to me," she corrects him politely. "My pregnancy is personal. My professional life is personal and you excluded me specifically, Richard – which is personal."

He frowns. "So you are mad."

"I'm not mad." She pauses now, then leans in a little for effect. "I'm _disappointed._ "

He flinches visibly. "That's so much worse," she hears him murmur after she sweeps away down the hall.

She's no drama queen – but she's always been fond of a good exit.

..

"Preston Burke doesn't think husbands and wives should compete for the same job," Derek informs his wife as he pulls out the empty seat next to her.

"No?" Addison glances up, a slight breeze moving her hair.

Solemnly, Derek shakes his head.

She takes a sip from a green bottle of sparkling water. "Well, then I suppose it's a good thing Cristina isn't running for Chief."

"Mm. Well, they're not married."

Addison turns her attention to her salad. "And she's an intern."

"That too." He studies her profile in the misty air. "Do you want me to back out of the race?"

"Why, because you think I can't handle it?"

"No, of course not." He frowns. "That was Richard, Addie, not me. You know that."

"If you want to be chief, Derek, you should stay in the race." She spears a cucumber and then just looks at it instead of eating it. "You want me to back out," she suggests, irritably.

"No, I don't," he reminds her patiently – part of their deal, after all, including his agreeing with her accusations of sexism, however unfair.

"If we both backed out, the race would be … Preston," Addison says. "Just Preston." She pauses. "Do we think he set this whole thing up?"

"It would be devious."

"Devious, and sort of brilliant."

For a moment they both smile, amused at the thought.

Then he helps himself to a piece of the whole wheat roll on the side of her plate.

"You have your own lunch, Derek."

"I do," he agrees, sampling another piece of her roll.

"Do you want your son to go hungry?" she asks.

He raises an eyebrow. "The book says you only need an extra two hundred and fifty calories a day at this stage of – "

"Derek."

He stops talking. "Yes?"

She leans forward, giving him a very good look at the contours of her silky top and reminding him with a flush of the morning.

He swallows hard.

"If you want to stay in my … good graces," she says delicately, "before I get too pregnant to … be graceful, you should probably never mention that two-hundred-and-fifty nonsense in my presence again."

"It's a deal," he says without hesitation.

She gives him a satisfied smile, her glasses slipping down her nose; she must have been reading before he got there.

One of the neurosurgical fellows stops by their table, then – he's thankful it wasn't moments before – and he's distracted for a few minutes of conversation. The fellow is eager, and more brilliant at surgery than social cues, but at last he's gone.

"Sorry, that was – "

He stops talking.

Addison isn't listening. She's holding her fork, which is still speared dispiritedly in her plate of salad, but it's motionless.

She's quiet, but more than that, she seems distracted, and even – sad.

"Addison."

She glances up, her eyes faraway. "Hm?"

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she says, both of their gazes tracking automatically to her midsection before she turns back to her salad.

He swallows. She's not, though; something is upsetting her. He thinks back to their conversation. His putative sexism has become a bit of a joke between them, but has he handled it all wrong?

"Addie."

She turns to him.

"Look, I'm fine stepping down from the race if you – "

"Oh, no." She looks more alert now – and like she's fighting a smile. "No stepping down, Derek. I want to tell our son one day that I beat his father fair and square."

… yeah, that's more like it.

..

She's summoned after lunch to examine a pregnant patient who suffered a possible MI. But by the time she's made haste to the ED, the woman has already been settled in triage.

"Her echo was clear." The intern – not one of Bailey's – looks a little embarrassed. "I guess, um, it seems like it was an anxiety thing. A panic attack, or – I can page psych."

Addison glances beyond the curtain into the room. "I'll page psych if it's necessary. I'm going to speak to the patient first."

"I'm sorry I bothered you," the intern – Stewart? – winces a little.

"You didn't." She closes the chart. "Dr. Stewart, I'd much rather see a woman with a panic attack overdiagnosed as cardiac than the reverse – and the reverse is much more common." She pauses, then throws a bone – hell, Richard is nowhere in sight and not her favorite person right now anyway, so she can afford to be generous. "You did a good job," she says, and the intern beams.

She parts the curtain just slightly, the triage version of a knock.

"Claudia? I'm Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd." She smiles.

"You're pregnant," the patient says in lieu of a greeting.

"I guess it's pretty obvious these days," Addison agrees, glancing down at the way the impeccably tailored dress Savvy sent accommodates her growing bump. "You're pregnant too." She smiles at the patient. "How are you feeling?"

She shrugs a little. "I'm okay."

 _So okay that you're in the hospital._

"You were feeling ill at work," Addison prompts. "Your colleague said that you seemed fine, until … ." She sets down the chart and pulls out the chair next to the bed. "Why don't you tell me what you remember."

"From before?"

Addison nods.

"I don't know." Claudia pauses, toying with the edge of the coverlet before she starts speaking again. "Katie, um, she was talking about taking a smoke break. I was going to go with her, you know, like keep her company but … ."

Ah. Addison recalls the chart. "You're a former smoker," she pushes gently.

Claudia doesn't answer.

"Was there something about – "

"I'm not that former," she mutters.

Claudia looks miserable.

Addison schools her face carefully. "Are you still smoking, Claudia?" she asks, keeping her tone neutral.

"No," her patient says quickly. "No, not anymore, but I didn't – I didn't actually stop when you're supposed to. You know. Not as fast as I was supposed to."

There are tears in her eyes.

"Okay." Addison smiles as reassuringly as she can. "Claudia, you're not the only woman who's struggled with giving up smoking when she finds out she's pregnant. The important thing is, you did give it up – "

Claudia nods; she looks embarrassed, but there's some relief in her expression too – no longer having to carry a lie.

"Claudia," she says gently. "It's okay."

"It's not. Tyler doesn't know." She glances up at Addison, her dark eyes bright with tears.

"Your partner," she guesses.

"Yeah." Claudia swipes at her cheeks. "He thought I quit right away, and he was – he was, like, _proud_ of me." She swipes at her eyes this time, smearing some of her makeup. "If I smelled like smoke I just told him it was Katie and the others and I _did_ quit." She looks at Addison. "I really did, just not right away. And Tyler doesn't know. And the baby – "

"The baby's markers are all normal," Addison reminds her.

"But it could still be messed up."

"I think you should tell Tyler."

"I don't want to." Claudia looks defiant now. "He doesn't need to know. Wait." She sits up a little, panic in her voice. "You're not going to tell him, are you?"

"No, of course not," Addison assures her, helping her settle in again.

"You said it wasn't such a big deal," Claudia mutters after a moment.

"I know. I'm not worried about the baby here, Claudia, I'm worried about you."

"What – like my lungs or whatever?"

"No." Addison shakes her head. "Look, keeping a secret like this – it's not good. It eats away at you. It does," she repeats when Claudia looks unconvinced, "and if you try to push it down it just comes out in other ways. Like your panic attacks."

"I don't want him to know."

"I know that." Addison takes a deep breath; without really meaning to, she channels Savvy. "The thing is, Claudia, it's better coming from you. Because the truth – it has a way of coming out, in the end. In time, it will come out. It always does. It just does."

Her patient looks pensive.

"But what if – "

"Claudia!"

There's no time for _what-ifs_ as the curtain is pushed aside to reveal an anxious-looking young man with tousled dark and a messenger bag slung over his chest.

"I got here as fast as I could. I'm sorry. I was so worried," he says all in a rush, then turns to Addison. "She's okay, right? And the baby? They're both okay?"

"They're both okay," Addison reassures him, not missing the order in which he asks about his loved ones. It reassures her, in turn, that she did the right thing encouraging Claudia to be honest.

"You get some rest and I'll stop by once your discharge is processed," Addison says.

Claudia glances up briefly to respond, and Tyler tosses a _thanks_ over his shoulder, but they're consumed in each other. As she closes the door behind her, she sees Tyler reach a large hand over to rest on the bump of his growing baby.

 _The truth will come out._

She crosses her fingers that the truth will go well for Claudia and her family.

 _It always does._

She's not part of their story anymore, but she still finds herself wishing for a happy ending.

 _It just does._

..

Alone, she leans against the cool plaster of the wall. She doesn't have to look at her blackberry to know what the emails say.

She does it anyway, forces herself to relive them.

They're short emails. Very, very short.

All from Mark.

 _Do you remember what next week is, Addison?_

That was the first one.

 _Do you know what week this is, Addison?_

That one came next, a few days later.

 _Did you forget?_

And then that one.

 _You're really not going to answer me?_

That was the last one.

She still hasn't responded.

What the hell can she write?

 _Yes,_ she remembered.

 _Yes_ , she knows.

 _No,_ she didn't forget.

She couldn't forget if she wanted to, and if she had, the sense of looming danger prickling since she received his first email would remind her. Over and over.

Which is why – _no_ , she's not going to answer him.

She can't.

..

In the trailer, that night, she's not alone. But she's alone in her thoughts, wearing her nightgown and tasting mint toothpaste in her mouth, but hesitating in the tiny kitchen area with her blackberry in her hand, forcing herself to look again.

 _You're really not going to answer me?_

"Addison?"

She looks up.

"What are you doing?" Derek looks genuinely curious.

"Nothing," she says quickly, closing the blackberry. Derek and Doc are waiting for her in bed with surprisingly similar expectant expressions, and there's only one thing to do:

Push it down.

Delete, wipe it away, like it never happened.

And when Derek smiles at her with that now-familiar almost-shy expression, one warm hand coming to rest on the bump where their child is growing, her doubts disappear.

"Good night, baby," he says, directing his words to their son. He pauses. "Sexism is wrong," he tells her bump solemnly, and she has to fight laughter – and appreciation that Derek is keeping up with his end of the post-Richard bargain. "But I'm sure you'll be smarter about that than your dad." Derek pauses again, moving his hand gently to cup her bump before he starts talking again. "If you want to pick side's in the chief's race, I won't hold it against you, I promise. And if you pick Preston Burke, the bonus is we both have a lot more time to take you fishing."

Addison clears her throat.

" – or shopping," Derek amends.

"Shopping?" She raises an eyebrow. "That's what you think my hobby is?"

Derek purses his lips. "Is _criticizing your husband_ a hobby?"

"I don't criticize my husband," she frowns.

"… so yes, it's a hobby. At least in this house."

" _This_ is not a house," she reminds him.

It's Derek's turn to clear his throat, pointing wordlessly at her belly, and she subsides, letting him finish his nightly ritual.

"As I was saying," he tells their baby, "the chief's race doesn't actually matter."

"Does Richard know you think that?" she whispers.

He ignores her. "So just forget all the chief nonsense," he tells their baby, "and focus on growing." He pauses. "Good luck with the toenails – _what_ is so funny?" he demands, turning to Addison.

"Good luck with the toenails?" she repeats.

He frowns. "Don't listen to your mom," he tells her bump. "She's just engaging in her favorite hobby."

Addison presses a palm to her mouth to keep from laughing, and then has to swallow back tears when Derek leans forward to plant a kiss on the bump where their baby is growing.

"I think your good nights are getting longer," she says quietly once she's regained composure and Derek is sitting up again.

"Well, so are his toenails," Derek answers mildly, raising an amused eyebrow before he flicks out the light, pulling her against him with one smooth movement.

It's too dark to see her blackberry, thank goodness, and she's too exhausted to do anything but sleep in the undeserved comfort of his arms.

..

Anxiety wakes her the next morning and lingers, like the grey haze hanging over the trailer's windows.

Derek is awake too, smiling at her in bed from his less coveted spot by the wall; he cups a hand around her bump and directs his morning greeting to their son. She drinks in the attention on both their behalf.

Anxiety. She's anxious.

Even though there's no reason to be anxious.

No reason in particular.

Everything is the same: the bed with its still-crisp sheets – Derek hasn't been living here long enough to achieve that pure softness that only comes from extended use – the sweet dog panting heated affection onto her face as she scratches his muzzle, the scent of coffee wafting from the tiny kitchen area, the thrum of water from the little shower.

They take a slow walk with Doc that's more like a stroll, just standing in the dew-dampened grass and absorbing the morning air. Doc is tired, pausing to lean against their legs sometimes – but other times sitting up alertly when he spots movements that could be a chipmunk or something else enticingly speedy and potentially tasty.

Back at the trailer, Doc pauses before he makes his way up the steps.

Husband and wife exchange a glance. These little indicators of Doc's lessened strength are heartbreaking, but the deal they made was that as long as Doc could still enjoy his life and his routing, his chipmunk chasing and his lake strolls, his fresh grilled meat and his belly scratches – then they would work around his limitations.

Derek squats next to the dog, rubbing his head, and moves as if to lift him – Addison swallows hard, but Doc manages to take a dignified first step, slowly, and then the rest of them. Once he's back on flat ground, he seems more like himself.

"It might be time to get a ramp," Derek says carefully, closing the door behind them.

There are tears in her eyes; she can't help it.

"Addie." He sounds a little surprised, but not judgmental, as he rests his hands on her shoulders.

"I don't want him to need a ramp," she admits, feeling foolish.

"Neither do I." He leans in and kisses her cheek. "He still might need one, though."

That's the rub.

..

The weather is mild enough to leave the windows rolled down on the way to their routine prenatal visit with Melissa. It's technically a 16 week visit, though she's crossed the bridge to 17 – really, it's just a reassurance, a change to see the baby between their 14-week ultrasound and the early anatomy scan in the 18th week.

"We're going to see him," Derek reminds her as they call the elevator – as he has before, more than once, and it always gives her a little thrill to hear him so excited.

But it's nothing compared to what it is to _see_ him so excited.

To see him, and the other _him_ , too.

"He's so big," Derek breathes, his tone awed, as the black and white image of their baby flickers onto the screen. They identify the visible parts, exclaim over a leg in motion for all the world like lay people. Like new parents.

"He's a perfect size," Melissa corrects, winking at Addison, but Derek is transfixed by the screen as the baby's fluttering heartbeat comes into view.

"Let's listen," Melissa suggests, and flicks on the sound.

It fills the room, fast and loud.

 _Did you hear the heartbeat? Did you?_

Now her heart is the one thumping and she draws a shaking breath, trying to steady herself.

 _Stop it, Mark, all you're doing is trying to torture me._

There's a faint buzzing from the overhead lights.

 _It figures you'd think you were the one someone's doing something to. Like none of this is your fault._

She's not going to do this – she won't tunnel out – she counts her breaths, carefully.

 _How can you say that? You really think I don't know it's all my fault?_

One-two-three in, one-two-three-four out.

Good air in, bad air out.

"Addie." Derek is looking at her, cutting through the fog, concern on his face. "You okay? What's going on?"

"I'm okay," she says weakly.

Melissa's face materializes above hers. "What are you feeling, Addison?"

 _Oh, you don't want to know, trust me._

"I guess I – feel a little faint," she admits.

Derek's palm is resting on her forehead now – reminiscent of the way he touched her after she passed out weeks ago, just before she lied about being pregnant.

Somehow, no matter how perfect this baby is, she's filled his short life with lies already.

"Addie." Derek is leaning closer. "What is it?"

"Did you eat breakfast?" Melissa asks.

"I always eat breakfast," she murmurs, as her breathing mercifully starts to even out.

"It's true," Derek reports. "The baby makes her do it … apparently." He looks down at her, his expression still concerned, brushing back some of her hair. "Maybe you should have had the trout," he says.

She smiles – mainly because she knows he'd like her to – and he smiles back.

"Should we take a break?" Melissa suggests.

"Let's look at him another minute," Addison says, "If you don't mind."

"Of course not. He looks _great_ ," Melissa adds, again, beaming as she runs the ultrasound herself.

Addison appreciates the full-service nature of her care – with the Nancy connection outed and exclaimed over, there's a feeling of honesty in the room despite the things she's determined not to think about.

Derek's other hand is clasped in hers now – grounded by his touch, she stays in the moment and enjoys the black and white flickering image of their child.

..

Once Addison is cleaned up and dressed, they settle in Melissa's office with its cheerful portraits of her children and marathon paraphernalia. It's become familiar. It's never ceased to amaze her, over the course of her life, how quickly something new can become familiar.

A trick of the brain.

Something her husband would understand better than she does.

They make small talk about Nancy and the OB community and _such a small world_ and then move on to discussing the upcoming appointments.

"We'll do your first anatomy scan in – " Melissa glances at the calendar – "just a little over a week, actually. And then the second somewhere in the 21st week. We do two, as you know, for patients of – "

"For old women," Addison interrupts, smirking to cover up her guilt.

"I hope you don't call your patients that," Melissa teases her gently. "Look, Addison, you and I both know there are certain risks that accrue with age."

Addison swallows hard, and Derek reaches for her hand.

"But we also know there's no reason to see appreciated risk in your case."

"After our screenings," Derek prompts.

"That's right." Melissa looks at Addison. "Age is _one_ factor," she says. "You know this. I don't have to tell you. You have a lot going for you, Addison. You don't smoke, you were a moderate drinker before your pregnancy – "

Addison sees Derek's eyebrows start to move north at the phrase _moderate drinker_. In spite of herself, she's amused.

" – you're at a healthy weight, you work out – "

Her husband's eyebrows are basically at his hairline at this point.

"Exactly," Addison says, cutting off the doctor before Derek can say anything else.

He squeezes her hand and she squeezes back; his feels supportive, hers … well, if she did it right, it communicated _don't make me laugh in front of Melissa._

..

They're still joking about it when they get back to the hospital, and she feels undeniably better.

Lighter.

"Tell me more about this _moderate drinking_ ," he teases her.

"Now you're just rubbing in the drinking part."

"Sorry," he says. "Should we go back to exercise?"

"You were _so_ obvious," she scolds him, forcing herself not to laugh.

"Was I?" he feigns innocence. "Tell me, Addie, what _is_ your exercise routine? Because … _I_ would have said it's fifty-fifty _wearing incredibly high heels_ and _intimidating residents_ , but I'm not sure that's what Melissa had in mind."

She smiles in spite of herself. "Do you mind?"

"Not at all." He pulls her into his side. "About that exercise routine … ."

"Keeping you in line," she says. "That's exercise."

He considers this. "Jumping to conclusions," he suggests.

She rolls her eyes. "Pushing boundaries?"

"Sure. Oh, and running off at the mouth. That one you can't exactly deny. And – that one is _definitely_ cardio."

She laughs a little, trying to think of more. " _Leap of faith_ ," she says after a moment. "Taking leaps of faith."

He glances down at the swell in her belly. "You did do that," he says. "You took a leap of faith." No need to specify what he means. "Thank you … for doing that," he adds quietly.

"You took one too." Moved, she lifts a palm to his cheek. "I'm so grateful."

He looks touched. "We both did," he says. "We're in this together."

"Together," she repeats.

The rightness of it all swells inside her and she can't help leaning toward him, angling for a kiss.

"I hate to interrupt such a happy couple."

They both stop and turn before their lips can touch.

Before she's even fully grapsed who it is, she realizes that her hand is resting on her bump – cradling it – and that she likes this dress specifically _because_ her pregnancy looks so obvious in it, because she was tired of hiding and that was exciting and now it's all coming crashing down because standing there, at the nurses' desk like a bad dream flashback, is Mark.

And he doesn't look happy at all.

"You're _pregnant_?" The color drains out of his face, and she realizes with a dawning horror that he's just putting it all together now. "Addison. What the hell?"

Derek has an arm around her shoulders now – protective, and she closes her eyes for a second, drinking in the last bit of his affection that she doesn't deserve, because she knows Mark and she knows when he's about to blow up her world.

Unwelcome memories wash over her – when she was the one draped in black and swirling lapels, marching through the hospital doors to throw a wrench in Derek's life. One he never asked for. She didn't know what would happen, that's what she told herself, and that's why from the moment she saw him again for the first time – _Addison, what are you doing here?_ \- right up until this very moment … she still hasn't been able to tell him the whole story.

Here, now, Derek's arm tightens on her, seemingly sensing her tension, and she wants his comfort as desperately as she knows she doesn't deserve it.

She starts to say his name but her husband is focused on Mark, glaring.

"What are you doing here?" he asks between gritted teeth.

"You might know if your wife bothered to answer my emails."

Addison winces.

It's going to be bad, she knows this, but can't they just –

" _Mark_." Derek is still in that protective stance that's slowly killing her. "I don't know what you think you're doing here," he continues, "but you need to take it somewhere else."

"Is that what you think, too?" Mark turns to Addison now, his jaw set. "You're going to get on the high horse, really? _This_ week?"

But she's frozen. She can't respond.

She sees the moment Mark realizes it.

She sees it, and she still can't respond.

"He doesn't know," Mark says slowly. He rotates, looking from Addison to Derek. "He doesn't know?"

She says nothing.

"Okay, look, lying to him is one thing, fine, I get it, I've told my share of lies," Mark grimaces, shaking his head, "but this is something else, Addison. This is … sociopathy. This is more than lying. This is _not right._ "

A lecture on morality. From _Mark Sloan._ It stings, as it should.

Even if he has the wrong idea.

Derek's brow is furrowed. "Lying," he repeats, sounding confused. "Mark – what are you talking about?"

"He doesn't know," Mark repeats.

She opens her mouth, but no sound comes out.

"You _still_ haven't told him." Mark turns on her, his eyes wide. It transforms his face into something – a little frightening. "After all this time."

"Addison." Derek looks at her; his stance hasn't changed and his tone is perfectly pleasant, but her stomach turns over anyway. "Do you want to tell me what's going on here?" he asks.

"No, she doesn't," Mark announces before she can say anything. "Isn't it obvious? She doesn't want to tell you the truth at all. … not that I blame her," he adds.

"Mark, shut up," she says weakly, finally finding her voice, knowing he won't.

"Let me help you out a little, Derek. Since we're such good friends and all," Mark says loudly. He points a finger right at the middle of her body where the snug contours of her dress leave her pregnancy exposed, then turns back to Derek, lowering his voice to an accusing hiss.

"That's not your baby."

* * *

 _Boom. (Please read notes below)_

 _... okay, couple of quick things - as many an astute reader has noticed, we're in the Season 3 timeline - around Six Days, Part I right now. Some of you also predicted Addison's unpleasantly surprising email at the end of the last chapter. And many of you have been waiting for Mark to show up and make an entrance, as he is wont to do. So here he is. I just want to be very clear - of course it's Derek's baby. You know this, we all know this, even Mark knows this. He's a doctor, and even visibly-pregnant-bigger-than-Nancy Addison doesn't look 40 weeks pregnant. Mark's upset, and angry, and lashing out, and it's a teensy bit of an homage to the dizzy end of the AU. So yeah, that's where we're wrapping up for now. But I just want to make sure you're clear that the cliff is not the Sheplet's paternity - so much as what the hell everyone is going to do now that le bomb has been partially dropped._

 _And finally - poor Addison. We all knew this was coming in some respect. Let's make a deal: I'll get the next chapter up for QPQ Sunday, and you'll give me a little more than just **how could you end on that cliff, you evil demon spawn**. I know the end is stressful, and more stress is coming, but at some point the dam had to burst. I would **love, love, love** to hear your thoughts. This has been a hell of a week, so make my 2 a.m. sleep worth it by ringing that review bell. Thank you always! _


	21. Real

_**A/N: QPQ Sunday is back again ... and this time it's actually still Sunday on the east coast too. (LoveandLearn, I really wanted to hit that early mark today, but I hope you'll enjoy the chapter even if you don't name your baby Winter Junior.) This chapter was hard to write. i knew it was coming - but it was still hard. A big part of what I love about Addek is their history, and that means a lot of hurt and a lot of love and the whole mess of both of them together. We all knew the secrets had to come out, and things are going to have to be harder before they can get easier. The truth is messy and complicated but it's finally coming out, so I hope you'll stick with Addek - and me - through the rest of this process.**_

* * *

 ** _Real_**

 _The truth will come out. In time, it will come out. It always does. It just does._

 _.._

* * *

Just four words, and her life is a telenovela. That's all it takes.

 _That's not your baby._

"Whatever game you're playing, Mark, we're not interested." Derek is glaring, and _we_ , he said _we_ , so – he's still on her side.

But he can't be, not for long.

"It isn't a game." Mark looks right at her, his gaze knowing and disgusted all at once and she swallows hard. "Addison – are you going to tell him or not?"

"Tell me what?" Derek asks, his voice sharpening when she doesn't speak. "Addison – what is he talking about?"

"Derek," she says quietly, her voice shaking, "can we just – "

"Tell me what?" he repeats, interrupting her.

And then he steps back, away from her, his arm falling from her shoulders while he looks from her to Mark and back again.

She's reminded very unfortunately of that last night in New York: Mark drops a bomb and then he's gone, leaving her with the fallout. The other night, the New York night, he said _sorry_ and he said _I'll call you_ and then loped down the same stairs she bolted down minutes later. The ones she hung onto for dear life a little after that.

Except this time, Mark hasn't left. He's standing there with his arms folded, watching.

Is he – enjoying this?

Her stomach turns over.

"Derek." She reaches for his arm. "Listen to me."

"Tell him about the baby, Addison," Mark interjects, evenly – like this is rational, like _any_ of this makes sense, like he isn't destroying her world. "Tell him, or I will."

She turns on him. "You just did."

"No, I didn't. Not everything."

"Stop it," she warns him, her voice shaking, "don't do this, Mark, not here – "

" – where should I do it, then?" He raises his eyebrows. "You ignore all my emails, you don't care what day it is, you probably don't even remember – "

"I remember," she whispers harshly, cutting him off. "And I know you're hurting, Mark, but you can't just – "

"Addison!"

They both turn.

Derek is staring at her.

Two words.

In the form of a question.

" _What baby?"_

..

He pulls away from her as soon as the door closes, leaving Mark on the other side.

Leaving the two of them alone in the empty call room, with nothing between him and the words she keeps hurling toward him.

All he can do, at first, is stare.

Because the words aren't sticking. He can't quite capture them.

They're standing in a fluorescent-lit call room that smells of bleach and sanitizing soap but for some reason the memory sticking to him right now is at least a decade old, drenched in summer sunlight: a game of sack toss on the sloping lawn of his sister's house, and Addison, frustrated by her uncharacteristically poor performance, finally chucking all the bean bags one after the other with less aim than desperation.

"Derek," she says.

And he sees it again, that memory. She just keeps missing.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I should have told you," she whispers. "I know I should have, Derek, but I was … embarrassed, and scared, and … and there was never a good time."

"Never a good time."

He repeats her words, trying to make sense of them.

"Never a good time," he says again.

"But I should have told you." She's pacing the room, hands twisting with anxiety, and he forces his gaze away from the rounded curve of her belly.

 _That's not your baby._

It is, of course it is. He has no doubt. What his mind is trying to wrap itself around now – with limited success – is that there was another one.

Another baby.

"You were pregnant."

There are tears in her eyes when she looks at him. "I was pregnant."

In his mind, again, is the hard thump of a bean bag against a painted wood board; the sun is high enough to blind.

Another try … another miss.

"Why?" he asks.

She seems to understand the question. Not _why were you pregnant_ but _why weren't you_.

She's silent for a long moments, her chest rising and falling with visible breaths. "I didn't know what else to do," she says finally. "It was – it felt – like the best choice in a – a bad situation."

He tries to make sense of it.

"Derek, we were still married – "

"I'm aware," he cuts her off, anger starting to flow to fill in the numb spaces left by Mark's words. "I'm actually not the one who forgot the vows."

She draws a shaky breath. "I couldn't do it. I couldn't have a baby with Mark."

"With Mark." He feels like he's missing something. "You – he wanted to keep it." Disgust trickles down his neck like a cold sweat. "He _wanted_ it."

"He wanted it." She's twisting her hands again. "Or he said he did, but he didn't – "

She stops talking.

He's missing something. Is he missing something?

"I'm sorry," she says again.

He waves a hand, impatient. It's architecture he's interested in: what are the lines of this latest piece of the story?

"So that's it," he prompts. "You were pregnant, you terminated it," he sees her wince at the word, "and that's it."

Slowly, she shakes her head.

..

"Addison, what the hell is wrong with you?"

The door to the call room bangs open without warning, Derek stopping mid-shout.

"Everyone can hear you," Mark announces.

"I don't care," Derek snaps.

So this is where they are. Mark, who never put much faith in OBGYN but spends the bulk of his time staring at women's bodies, apparently thought her second trimester figure looked 40 weeks pregnant. Which is just great. Derek, who actually put some faith in _her_ , now knows what a liar she is.

Great, again.

And now Mark is here, standing in the open doorway, maybe pleased with what he's wrought.

… even better.

"Mark, close the door," Addison hisses, swiping at her eyes.

He does, but he stays in the room.

"I meant without you outside of it."

"So you can tell Derek your side without anyone to remind you what really happened?" Mark asks.

"I already told him what really happened."

"Supposedly," Derek says, glaring at her. "Except you already told me what _really_ happened the last time too, weren't you? When it was just a one-night stand?"

Mark's eyebrows raise. "Of course that's the version you stuck to. Where you're the damsel in distress and I'm the bad guy, right?"

Derek ignores him. "Sorry, a … _few_ -night stand. That was the latest … truth, right?"

She catches her lower lip in her teeth, not sure how to respond.

"Right?" he persists. "That's what you told me – in the hotel – that was the truth. No more secrets." He looks disgusted with her and she feels a piece of her heart she never meant to grow again crack in two.

"I'm sorry," she whispers.

"It wasn't a one-night stand," Derek repeats, sounding like he's processing it. The way he'll sometimes sort through a thorny set of symptoms in a particularly tricky patient, repeating it in different variations while he paces the first floor, scotch in hand. Or he used to, anyway.

 _I was in love with him – or I thought I was. I didn't want to believe I'd thrown my life away, that I'd thrown my marriage away –_

She repeats the words that angered him before Mark burst into the room and he stares past her like she doesn't exist, her jaw set and angry.

"We lived together for two months," she finishes, all in one breath, as if that will somehow lessen this last ugly part of the story.

"I told her to tell you," Mark announces; if he's deflated at all at her characterization it's not visible. "I was going to tell you myself, when I was here, about how we felt, except you didn't listen. But I figured you deserved to – "

"Shut up, Mark," Derek says tiredly, but Addison can't enjoy it because he turns on her as soon as he's finished.

"You had a _relationship_." He says the word like it tastes bad. "You were in _love_ with him?"

"I – I thought I was, Derek, but I was just – I was scared. I didn't want to be alone."

Mark snorts faintly at this and her cheeks flush.

"I should have told you," she says again, directing her voice to Derek only. Like a broken record.

Which makes sense, since that's how she feels right now: broken.

Mark is still just standing there, leaning his big frame against the door like he's watching a damn television show, and she can't help turning to him.

"You think it makes you look so much better, that we stayed together? You think Derek will want to be your friend again now?"

His brow furrows.

"He's _Mark_ ," Addison says, turning to Derek now. "He's Mark and yeah, we did live together, but he – spent the whole time cheating on me."

"Cheating on you," Derek repeats, in that same disgusted tone. "I'm sorry, is it possible to … _cheat_ on someone … who's cheating on her husband? Doesn't that word imply some kind of fidelity in the first place?"

She's losing him.

His expression makes that clear.

"I caught him with someone else," she whispers, desperately trying to get him to hear her. She glances at Mark, who's watching her with a furrowed brow. He won't want to hear this and she can't care, not right now. "I wanted you, Derek. When Richard called – and then I got here and it seemed like maybe you were willing to – that you would – "

" – so it was worth getting rid of our kid," Mark interjects.

She shudders. "That's not what I said."

"But it's what you did."

" _Mark._ " She tugs at the ends of her hair with sheer frustration. "Can you please just – go and let us talk?"

"Since that worked so well the last time." He glares at her. "You just – smear my name and you get to be the good guys. You're the good guys and I'm the bastard who wrecked it all."

They're both looking at her as she takes a shaky breath, unable to speak. She's lost the plot, can't figure out which of them to look at when they're both staring at her.

All she knows is that she has to try to make Derek understand.

But when she says his name he presses his lips together, not responding.

"Derek, please just listen – "

Their faces blur as the tears in her eyes overflow.

She shoves her hands against her eyes, not caring if she's trailing mascara down her cheeks,

"Stop crying." Derek shakes his head. "If you're trying to make us feel sorry for you, it's not working."

So now they're an _us_ again.

They're an us, and she's … nothing.

"I'm not trying to make you feel sorry for me," she protests, "I'm just trying to get you to listen to me!"

"I did listen to you." His voice is low and cutting; he doesn't need to yell to telegraph his anger with her. "I'm tired of listening to you."

She swallows hard, swiping at more tears. She accepts it – she deserves it. She can't be here, though.

She can't be with them.

"Where do you think you're going?" Derek demands before she's even reached the door.

"Out," she says, trying to keep some dignity even though she can't even imagine what she looks like right now, a mascara-trailed mess, but it's better than being in here.

"Running away from your problems again," he says scathingly, "I'm shocked."

"You're the one who ran to Seattle!"

"And you ran after me, Addison, but you conveniently forgot to tell me _why_ you ran here. Didn't you?"

He advances on her when she doesn't respond; she knows he's not going to _do_ anything but she takes a step back anyway, automatically.

"Didn't you," he repeats loudly.

"I said I was sorry."

"And I said I don't care how sorry you are!" He's loud enough now that she's certain everyone passing by can hear them and close enough that she can feel his hot angry breath on her face.

Everything is falling apart.

 _Everything_.

Derek is looking from one of them to the other now.

"Seventeen weeks," he says, and hearing him say their baby's gestational age, which he's been speaking with such reverence and joy all this time, in that cold tone feels like a fist to the solar plexus.

She says nothing, not sure what he's getting at.

"Seventeen weeks," Derek repeats. He looks like he's thinking about something.

And then he turns on her. "Did you sleep with him when he was here last time?"

She staggers back.

" _No_ , Derek, of course I didn't."

"Because you're so trustworthy," he says. "It's so easy to believe you, especially about Mark."

"I know I didn't tell you the whole truth," she says, her voice shaking, "but that was about when I was in New York. All of that, it happened before. Everything that happened _here_ has been real."

"That's what you think?" His face is angry enough to remind her of the night he caught them in New York and it makes her stomach turn over with bitter, unpleasant sense memory. "That everything here has been real?"

He's trapping her. She knows this as well as she knows _him_ but she's too tired, too ashamed, too _sad_ to try to outsmart him. So she just nods.

" _Nothing here has been real!"_

He shouts it loud enough, and from close enough, to make her jump a little and even Mark flinches from his position feet away.

"Derek," he says quietly.

Mark doesn't look like he's enjoying this anymore.

Maybe he thought it would be fun, watching Derek tear her apart for sport.

She gets that – Mark isn't the only one who's tried to provoke Derek just to get a reaction, _any_ reaction, and she can almost sympathize with him. She knows how much it hurts to be ignored.

Then she sees her husband's cold eyes – directed to her alone – and her sympathy for Mark wanes.

"But it _was_ real." She argues with him against her better judgment, through tears that make his angry face shimmer and blur in front of her eyes. "Derek, I swear, I haven't lied about anything here. I haven't – I haven't – "

"Give it a rest." He's pacing like an angry lion and she finds herself gauging the distance between the door and her own body, which is ridiculous but – she does it anyway. He turns on her before she can say anything else.

"You haven't lied about anything?"

She quails a little under his gaze but doesn't say anything in response.

"You lied about _everything_ ," he corrects her coldly. "You made me take you back on false pretenses, you made me feel _guilty_ for being in love with Meredith – "

"You can't say you wish you hadn't taken me back." Her breath hitches at the painful thought. "Not if you want this baby. He wouldn't be here if you hadn't taken me back."

"He's the only reason I don't wish that. The only one." Derek is staring her down, letting his words sink in to the beat of her thumping heart. "I want you out of the trailer," he says after long moments. "I want you out immediately."

"Okay." Her voice shakes. "I'll, um, I'll get my things."

"Good." Derek pauses. "You're not leaving Seattle," he adds shortly.

"Why?" She wipes tears out of her eyes. "If you hate me so much."

"Stop with the self-pity for once." He shakes his head. "It's not about you. I'll get a court order if I have to, you're not taking my child."

"Your _child_ is a fetus who happens to live inside of me right now."

"Watch out, Derek," Mark interjects casually. "This is how it starts. One day you're buying a onesie, the next … " He raises an eyebrow and extends a hand, stopping just short of actually miming suction, and her stomach curdles with nausea at the crude gesture.

 _This is how it starts._

Her head spins.

She loved both of these men. In different ways, at different times, but still … love. She trusted them, bared herself to them, and now in this increasingly claustrophobic room their shared past is whizzing through her memories and falling apart.

Derek turns on her. "You wouldn't," he breathes.

"Of _course_ I wouldn't, Derek – how could you say that?"

Her legs are liquid at the horror. Their breakfast-loving baby, recipient of Derek's verbal fly-fishing lessons and nightly chats, the one they've been talking to and talking about since her husband learned he was going to be a father.

And for a moment, just a moment, Derek's eyes flicker. Like he's remembering too. Like he's still –

"No," he says sharply before she can speak again. " _No_. You don't get the high horse," he adds, borrowing Mark's words from earlier.

"I want this baby, Derek," she says, her voice trembling. "You know I want this baby."

"She wanted the other one, too," Mark says to no one in particular, "until she didn't."

"Mark, shut _up_." She turns on him, wanting nothing more than to make him stop smirking, stop _talking_ , not even sure what she wants to do although clawing his eyes out does sound appealing, but Derek intercedes, moving her back before she can touch Mark at all.

He's not rough – his touch is clinical if anything – but something about the feeling of his grip on her is unsettling anyway.

"Let go," she protests, hating how whiny she sounds, and Derek releases her, looking disgusted.

Both men are silent. She wants to tell Mark to leave, _haven't you done enough_ , but somehow this whole mess is all three of theirs and she can't seem to do it.

She can't seem to speak, either.

The silence is deafening.

Derek is glaring at her, one of his hands propped on the metal frame of the upper bunk and her gaze falls on his bare fourth finger.

"You never put your ring back on," she whispers.

The fear Nancy perceptively identified leaves a bitter taste in the back of her throat.

 _Was it only temporary for you? Only for the baby?_

Derek's eyes widen. "You're seriously going to – you're unbelievable. No. You're not going to blame me for this."

"I didn't – "

"Take a little responsibility for once, Addison," he suggests, none too quietly. "Stop blaming Mark for everything, and me for everything else, and blame yourself once in a while!"

"I _do_ blame myself! I blame myself all the time." She's crying again. Did she ever stop? "You don't understand. You won't listen to me."

"I've listened to you a hell of a lot more than I should have."

It stings, but she gets it.

"I know, Derek, okay, but please just listen to me one more time. Just listen to me now."

"No. I don't have to listen to you anymore. I don't have to look at you anymore. We're done," he says, and even though everything from the tone of his voice to his cold eyes to his order to vacate their ostensibly shared home has made that clear since Mark's announcement – it's the first time he's actually said the words, and her heart constricts with fear.

"Derek, _please_."

Her breath hitches hard, and without warning she finds herself fighting for her next one, suddenly starving for air like she's been underwater. Instinctively, she bends at the waist, trying to catch her breath, her chest prickling with need.

"Addison," Derek says sharply. "What's the matter with you?"

"She's faking," Mark suggests, his tone dismissive, but a little nervous all the same.

She's not faking.

Not really, although she can't lie that it's sheer, blessed relief for Derek to stop yelling at her for half a second to actually worry about her instead.

"She's not. She's a terrible faker," Derek says. He's even closer now and she winces a little, but his voice is much quieter, as he takes both her arms. His grip is firm but not rough at all as he steers her to what she realizes, when she feels the mattress against the back of her legs, is the bottom bunk of the on-call bed. "Sit," he orders, giving her little choice in the matter.

Sitting doesn't seem to help much, except that it lets him sit down beside her – she feels the mattress dip when he does – take hold of her again and tip her carefully forward while she struggles for her next staggered breath.

"Calm down," he says quietly. "You just need to breathe."

Both his hands are on her, supporting most of the weight of her upper body, and she's trying to get control of her breath but it's not working, it just keeps hitching and she hears the gasps that do sound – they sound dramatic, a little scary … maybe even a little fake.

But they're not.

"Derek." Her breath gives out between the syllables. When she turns her head, with some effort, to look at him he swims in front of her eyes and then panic surges again; it's imperative that he know this is real. "It's not – I'm – "

He turns her so she's leaning forward again. "Breathe, Addison," he instructs like it's that simple. "Don't try to talk. Just breathe."

She's trying.

She is.

"Just calm down," he's muttering, moving his hand along her back. "Come on, Addie. Calm down."

It doesn't seem fair when he was just yelling at her, but she's not exactly in a position to debate. She tries to her best to slow her breathing down, but it's not working.

"What's wrong with her?" Mark is asking from somewhere over her head, his voice echoing unpleasantly.

"A flip out, orange level." Derek doesn't sound totally convinced though. "Addison. Stop trying to talk," he scolds her when she attempts to defend herself. "Just breathe."

"I think we should get her checked out," he says to Mark, over her head.

There's that _we_ again.

But _checked out_ – no.

"No," she says out loud. "No, I'm – fine."

But there are still spaces between the words, spaces any medical student would know, much less an intern, and now there are spaces between her eyes, dark ones.

Dark stars.

"Addison!"

..

"I hope you're happy," Derek snaps at Mark, once Addison has been loaded onto a gurney, Bailey – that's who Addison would want; the thought comes to him unbidden.

She's pushed them outside the room, assuring them everything would be fine.

"You think this is my fault?" Mark asks incredulously. "You're the one who was yelling at her."

"You're the one who told me she lied to me!" Derek counters. His heart is still pounding, his loosely curled hands retaining the memory of holding her in place as he failed to calm her down. She was twisting in his grip, trying to talk over her strained breaths – to him, trying to talk to him, trying to apologize to him.

Guilt curdles his stomach.

"Yeah?" Mark glares at him. "Well, you're the one who started dating an intern and made her lie in the first place. If it's anyone's fault, it's yours."

"You're the one who slept with my wife and sent me to Seattle to find the intern in the first place," Derek snaps.

Mark's eyes narrow. "You're the lousy husband."

"And you're the lousy friend." They're both breathing heavily. "And from what I've heard – you weren't such a good _boyfriend_ either."

The sound of a throat clearing startles them both.

"If you two are done with the measuring sticks," Bailey says, disdain evident in her voice, "Addison would like to see you. _You_ ," she clarifies, pointing at Derek. "Not you," she adds, pointing at Mark.

"How is – "

"She's fine," Bailey tells him as they walk down the hall. There's a tone in her voice he can't read, but he's too exhausted to try. "And so is the baby."

Relief exhausts him further; he could swear he's aged ten years since Mark walked back into his life.

"She needs to rest," Bailey adds as they approach the room.

He nods distractedly.

"Shepherd … ."

He looks up.

"She needs to rest," Bailey repeats.

"I know."

"Which means … you do not upset her."

He blinks at the unfairness of it.

"I don't plan to," he says finally, when it seems as if she's waiting for an answer.

Bailey is still standing in front of the door. He reaches for the handle and she raises her eyebrows, not moving.

"Dr. Bailey?" he prompts.

"Look," she says quietly, "I don't know what happened between the two of you – "

 _Neither do I._

" – but you need to keep it out of that room."

He nods, impatient. "Can I speak to my wife now, please?" he asks pointedly.

Bailey studies his face for a moment. "Be nice," she says.

"I'm always nice."

She snorts. "We'll talk about that later." And before he can defend himself, she's stepping aside, opening the door, and ushering him through.

He blinks when he steps inside, the door closing behind him. It's dim and for a moment he just stands there, adjusting to the change in light.

It's easier than adjusting to what he now knows to be the truth. Addison and Mark. In … a relationship? In love? _I was in love with him, or at least I thought I was. I told myself that, because I was terrified of what I'd done._

A pregnancy that preceded this one.

His gaze falls on the bed, where Addison is lying propped up barely at all, looking at the ceiling.

Her body is taking up little space under the covers but he can see the stretch of the white blanket over her lower belly just from the way her arms are positioned at her sides. One of her hands is resting on the bump; which one of them is comforting which, he's not sure.

He can't imagine another pregnancy starting _or_ ending. He can't imagine – a _relationship_ , Addison buying those expensive coffee beans she insists on – but for Mark – and fussing at Mark not to crease his suits when he rifled through the closet and pleading with Mark to set the thermostat two degrees warmer than anyone would want it because her toes were always cold.

It doesn't make sense.

It just doesn't.

He can wrap his mind around a few more interludes, a _several-night stand_ , two guilty consciences seeking comfort in meaningless release. He was nauseated the first time and not much better when Addison trickle-confessed a fraction of the rest the night they spent at the Archfield. Nauseated … but able to comprehend it.

This, though?

A relationship?

In love. In _love._

She must have said it to him, then: _I love you._ And Mark – did he say it back to her? The words Derek hasn't managed to string together since their reconciliation, not out loud anyway, not to anyone other than their unborn son?

Of course Mark must have said it – easily. Of course it was easy for Mark to destroy everything.

Nausea threatens to overwhelm him; he has no choice but to force it down. If he thinks about it, he won't be able to look at her.

If he thinks about it, he won't be able to breathe.

"I'm sorry," Addison whispers when he approaches, without turning her head, so that her words too are directed at the ceiling. "Derek, I don't even know how to tell you how sorry I am, but I'm so, so sorry."

"Okay." He stands at the side of the bed for a moment, then picks up her hand. It feels uncharacteristically small. "Let's not talk about that now. How are you feeling?"

"Not so great," she admits.

"Physically, I mean."

"Not so great either." She finally turns her head toward his; her eyes are swimming with tears.

"Don't cry. It's not good for the baby for you to get worked up." He moves in closer to brush some leftover tears off her face. "Addie … come on."

She covers her face with her other hand, the one he's not holding – it's her left, and her rings catch what's left of the light.

 _You never put your ring back on._

He wasn't so far gone that he didn't get her implication. That this was temporary for him, that he was coasting on the endorphins of the flawless life they created together and ignoring the flaws in the life they shared.

"Addison," he says quietly.

..

She hears him say her name, but he sounds far away even though it's her eyes she's covering, not her ears.

Slowly, she withdraws her hand to see him looking down at her. She swallows hard, willing back the tears.

The sadness in his eyes isn't making her any less anxious. Did he come to say goodbye?

… no. He came, she's certain of it, because she asked him to and Miranda passed on the message. He's fulfilling his obligation.

The word _obligation_ reminds her of Mark's accusations.

"Derek."

He looks at her.

"We can do whatever you want," she offers hoarsely, "amnio, whatever you need. He's your baby."

"Amnio has risks," he says, "and anyway … I know he's mine."

"You do," she repeats uncertainly.

"Of course I do."

Oh.

"I didn't sleep with Mark when he was here in Seattle," she offers next, feeling her cheeks flush with shame that it could even be a possibility, that he actually asked about it in the call room. "I know with the – timing or whatever – but I swear I didn't."

"I know that too," Derek says, sounding exhausted. "That's not the point."

" … oh."

"The point is, you lied to me," he continues. "You told me you were done keeping secrets, but you weren't. You lied."

His tone is nothing like the one in the exam room – the words themselves could be accusatory but not in this sad, tired cadence. Now they sound … honest, and painful.

She just nods weakly. "But I – but it's still our baby."

"I know that, Addison," he repeats. "My feelings about the baby haven't changed."

He stresses the words _the baby_ , presumably just to make his point extra clear. Derek loves to be clear.

"Okay." She takes a deep, shuddering breath. "Okay, I get that."

"Okay." He gives her a smile – a brief, impersonal smile, the kind you'd give a patient.

Except sadder.

"I want you to rest now," he says quietly. "Stress on your body stresses the baby."

"Derek? Can you stay?" Her voice sounds small and congested to her own ears. "Just for a little while, I mean." She pauses, embarrassed. "Stay with the baby, if you don't want to stay with me. I just happen to be … carrying him. You can pretend I'm not here."

She tries to smile like she's kidding, and then she's crying again. Miranda must have given her something strong.

Is this where everything is going to end – in this little room?

They were laughing in a room just like this one, with the same circular curtain. They had _fun_ , that day. Batting a pillow back and forth like they were still medical students who hadn't made a mess of their lives.

His voice cuts through her misery, speaking her name.

"Calm down," he says softly.

But she can't.

She senses him leaning over the bed and then she feels him take her face between his palms. His hands are warm against her skin, soothing. They mold to her cheeks like they always have.

The thing is that hates her now. He's made that clear. Apparently … he just hasn't told his hands yet.

She closes her eyes, letting herself be comforted and pretending the last horrible few hours never happened. That they're still walking down the hall together, laughing about their appointment with Melissa. Talking about the baby. As he murmurs calming words, she brings one of her hands up to hang onto his where he's holding her face. A hot tear drips onto their clenched hands.

"Shh." Derek moves the hand she's not gripping and uses it to smooth her hair away from her cheeks. Her whole face feels damp and sticky from crying so much. She's a mess.

She's a mess … and his eyes are still so soft when she opens hers again.

And it's not fair.

"You need to calm down, Addie." His voice is very gentle, even a little sad. "The baby is counting on you." He moves that hand down from her hair and rests it on the bump where their baby is growing. "Deep breaths. Let me hear."

She tries, sputtering out halfway through the first time and then, at his coaching insistence, tries again.

The next one is somewhat easier. And then the next.

Her breathing slows, letting her jumbled mind slow too – forming the contours of a plan that for now exists only in her head.

As for Derek, he stays until she calms down.

Maybe he's staying with the baby … maybe not.

But he stays, and his face is the last thing she sees before her eyes drift closed.

* * *

 _To be continued next Sunday. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, as much as you can enjoy such a stressful period for our favorite sad ship. They're not black and white, these two - not with the Sheplet involved, not even if they wanted to. They've had all this time rediscovering each other and getting the rest of the Mark revelation out now is different than it would have before. I will say that the original prompt that made me write this story was "a different sort of abortion reveal," and I liked the idea that the abortion and pregnancy were less of what Derek was horrified by than the relationship/living together/theoretically in love part. It was going to be a short one-off; hi from chapter 21. I promise you that things are going to get better, even if it's hard. Addison has a plan, so that's something, at least? it's a bumpy road to the endgame, but the goalposts are there._

 _All that is to say ... I'll see you next Sunday. And pretty please review and let me know what you think? I'm blue from my poor angsty ship and could use it. Good night, all, and thank you for reading._


	22. Truth Hits Everybody

_**A/N: Hi, wonderful readers! Thank you so much for your response to the last chapter. I know it was a rough ride, and you guys had great comments about it, both how hard it was and how necessary it was for moving forward. I agree - so let's start moving forward. Bear in mind that it's going to take time. If our favorite couple made it easy, we wouldn't need huge multi-chapter stories like these. But Addison and Derek are as frustrating as they are enticing. Here's a very very long chapter for your QPQ Sunday reading, nice and early here on the east coast. I hope you enjoy.**_

 _ **(Title from the**_ **Police** _ **song of the same name - seemed both era and topic appropriate ...)**_

* * *

 _ **Truth Hits Everybody**_

 _Gestational Age: Seventeen weeks, one day  
Baby is the Size of: an onion … which seems fitting considering all the tears  
The Truth is: out  
Baby is: still perfect  
But Everything Else is: pretty damn terrible  
_ _  
_ _.._

* * *

No sooner has Derek closed the door behind him than he's confronted with Bailey, hands propped on her hips.

"Addison sleeping?"

Derek nods.

"Good." Bailey gives him an appraising sort of look, then gestures him to follow her. She waits until they're a few yards away before she turns back to him.

"Now you can tell me what the hell that was."

He considers the disastrous last few hours. "That … was Mark."

"Mark?" Bailey repeats, eyes widening. "No, I meant the part where you drove your pregnant wife into a hospital bed."

He blinks. "I didn't - that wasn't my fault."

Bailey raises her eyebrows. "Really. That was someone else yelling at her? Because I have about … let's see, three interns, four nurses, a couple of LPNs, a resident, and a partridge in a pear tree who all heard you inside that call room that you apparently think is soundproof."

He feels his face flush. "That was me … yelling at her, Dr. Bailey, but I obviously didn't intend for this to happen."

"What's so obvious about it?"

He opens his mouth to defend himself, then closes it again. The temperature of Seattle Grace started shifting when Addison arrived, and her pregnancy – so publicly announced at hospital prom – pushed it further, if anything. The fact that Addison has been thoroughly checked out and along with the baby is fine, examined by the same MFM whose ultrasound she permitted months ago now, isn't going to help, not with Bailey. She's giving him the same look she did on the way to Addison's room, the _don't screw this up again_ look.

Was it another lifetime when they shared an elevator ride and he confessed the indecision that could be his downfall?

With this recollection comes the sharp slap of another one – the reminder that he didn't have the full story then, or ever, until mere hours ago.

Bailey is still watching him expectantly, judgment in her dark eyes.

"Since you're so concerned about Addison," and he finds can't really help himself now, "did she happen to tell you _why_ I was yelling at her?"

Bailey's eyes widen again. So he can still surprise her.

"You weren't very quiet about it, Shepherd. She didn't need to tell me."

He exhales, forcing calm. Tries to remind himself that Addison, too, is suffering from her choices. How small she looked in the hospital bed, how exhausted she seemed when she finally fell asleep.

But he can't.

His mind is swimming instead with images of the two months in Manhattan that he's only just learned existed, imagined but real enough to sting:

Addison curled on the couch in reading glasses, medical journal resting in her lap, brushing Mark's hand with hers to point out something in an article she'd like him to see.

Addison pouring Mark a drink after a long day, propping her elbows on the kitchen island to listen to him.

Addison turning around at the bedroom mirror, giving Mark a slow smile to ask him to help her zip her dress.

Addison storing her toothbrush next to Mark's in the bathroom, her coffee mug next to his in the kitchen, her body next to his in the bedroom.

In his bed, perhaps, finishing what they started the night he caught them.

The thought is nauseating.

"Shepherd."

He looks up to meet her eyes.

"Seems like he has his own agenda," she says.

"Who, Mark?"

Bailey nods.

 _That's an understatement._

"I'm just saying. Don't let this guy – " she pauses as if she's already forgotten his name.

"Mark," Derek reminds her.

"Mark," Bailey repeats. "Don't let this _Mark_ change everything. You've been here without him for a while, you and Addison. And Mark just got here."

But he's already changed everything. Can't she see that?

He doesn't respond, but Bailey seems to hear him anyway.

"Shepherd … Mark doesn't get a rewrite. It's your story. Not his."

..

He's still turning Bailey's words over in his mind when he takes a call from Melissa, catching her up on Addison while tactfully keeping both of their culpability out of the equation. Melissa is pretty tactful herself, gently inquiring about new sources of stress –

 _Oh no, everything's just about the same around here. Calm and quiet._

And reassuring him that Addison and the baby are both strong. This, for some reason, makes him swallow hard.

Then he's contemplating his next move – any emergent patients were reshuffled already when Addison was admitted for observation, but he could certainly work and he's skimming his email – when he hears someone call his name.

He recognizes the voice immediately, but his heart still pounds when he turns to see the face it belongs to.

"How is she?" Mark strides up for all the world like he belongs here.

Derek pockets his blackberry, moving with purposeful slowness. "Now you're concerned?"

"I'm always concerned."

"Yeah – you were so concerned that you started all this with your Mark Sloan pay-attention-to-me entrance, right?"

Mark shakes his head. "Don't pin this on me. You were the one going at her."

Derek stops himself before he responds, hearing Bailey's voice:

 _Mark doesn't get a rewrite._

"Go home, Mark," he says simply. "You've done enough here."

"Look, man, she didn't tell you the whole truth," Mark persists, "about us."

"Yes. I think I've figured that out now. Thank you." He retrieves his blackberry to let work take what's left of his attention. Mark doesn't deserve any of it.

But Mark, of course, doesn't take the hint. When has Mark ever taken a hint?

"Derek … I just thought you should know. As a friend."

"You're not my friend." Derek grimaces, shaking his head.

Mark shoves his hands in his pockets, but not before Derek catches a glimpse of hurt in his face.

 _The nerve._

"What about Addison?"

"What about her?" Derek asks, not trying very hard to keep the irritation out of his voice now.

"Can I see her?"

What must it be like to be Mark, so destructive with no _off_ button? All he's wrought … and he still wants to see Addison.

Derek stares at him for a moment, the man he used to call his best friend.

This man who was a brother to him, by his side for so many of the most pivotal moments of his life.

Listens to him asking for permission to visit his wife's hospital room … when it was he, Mark, who crash landed the events that led her there.

"Ask her yourself," he says shortly. "I'm not her keeper."

..

"Perfect," the nurse says, smiling at her. "Just perfect."

She must mean the baby, whose monitoring has been mercifully flawless.

Because Addison, herself? Is anything but perfect.

About as far as you can get.

 _Thank you_ , that's all she says, not bothering to smile back –

That's hospital privilege, even if she's _only admitted for observation, let's be_ clear – and then she goes back to staring at the ceiling, longing for the blackberry Bailey convinced her to set down – _the baby needs you to relax, and work doesn't relax any of us._

Without distraction, though, all she can do is focus on the way everything has come crashing down.

Briefly, she takes stock of what's left of her life.

The biggest mistake she's ever made waltzed into the hospital and took a match to everything she and Derek tried to rebuild.

And now her husband hates her.

He hates her … and she's pregnant with his baby.

Every secret she's tried to keep from imploding the happiness of that baby's existence has blown up in her face.

Every fear she's had about Derek's reaction, every missed moment of sleep and swallowed anxiety, is here to remind her how unworthy she is of the perfect life they created together.

 _No more secrets_ , that's what she told Derek that night in the hotel.

It wasn't true.

Her biggest secret, though, has always been just how terrified she was that the truth would ruin everything. Admitting how real that fear was meant admitting how shaky was the ground of this marital reconciliation.

But what did she expect? For Derek to smile and say, _thanks for telling me, Addie, but it's no big deal. Why should lying about your affair with Mark change anything between us?_

Her stomach clenches when she thinks of the Derek with whom she's become reacquainted – the one who stops her with a kiss when they pass in the trailer and stands behind her at the mirror to tell her she's beautiful and rests a hand on her belly each night to talk to their baby – is no more.

She knows Derek well enough to know that his snappish order to her to vacate the trailer was the heat of the moment. He's not going to physically throw her out – not when she's pregnant, anyway, but she pushes down that line of thought. _We're done_ , that's what he said, and it doesn't matter, does it, whether he meant _done forever_ or _done with all the good things this baby has helped us remember?_

Which leaves her with the persistent and painful question: _now what?_

She's pregnant.

She's alone.

Even though Derek sat with her until she fell asleep, his voice keeping her calm even though it was that same voice that sent her into a tailspin in the first place. He's committed to the baby, and she gets that.

She has to get that.

She has no choice.

 _I'm sorry_ , she tells the baby who deserves so much better than this, deserves the family his mother couldn't keep together. She rests a hand on the bump through the white cotton blanket – her left, with his rings she still wears – and it's only the desire not to dehydrate herself that keeps the tears at bay this time.

..

"How's Addison?"

Derek looks up from the chart he's been reviewing. He's working just enough that he can tell himself he's too busy to check on Addison again; Bailey has updated him anyway, so he knows she's fine.

"… she's fine." He cocks his head, studying the woman in front of him. Her posture is expectant. "You heard. You heard?"

Meredith nods. "Pretty much everyone did."

 _Great._

"Mark isn't known for subtlety," he offers. An understatement if he's ever heard one, but fine.

"I guess not." She glances over her shoulder as if she's wondering whether Mark can hear them. " … I'm sorry," she adds, "that he's here. And that Addison is here."

She pauses, perhaps questioning the wording.

"It's just a precaution," Derek recites. "She's not formally admitted – it's only observation."

Meredith nods. "That's good."

 _Nothing is good._

She looks at Derek for a moment. "Is there anything I can do?" she asks after a moment.

He considers the question.

"Actually, there's a chance they'll want to keep monitoring her overnight," he admits, then pauses, trying to decide if this is a good idea.

Meredith looks receptive, so he continues, and when she agrees the relief is enough to overwhelm him.

It's just a precaution, that's all – but still.

..

Addison promises Miranda she wasn't actually sleeping – it's true; whatever she's been doing is too fitful to be called sleep, anyway – and only then does the resident who's been so protective reluctantly opens the door a little wider to let someone pass.

Her visitor fills up the doorway with his large frame, even with his shoulders slumped.

"Hey." Mark shoves his hands in his pockets, his eyes lowered. "You okay?"

She nods without speaking. It's just the two of them in the room, and the pauses between words are accompanied by the faint buzzing of the fluorescent lights.

"I'm, uh, I'm sorry I said you were faking," he mutters. "Before."

Of course that's what he's sorry for.

Typical.

His expression is hang-dog, though.

"Forget it," she says.

He studies her for a moment, still with that air of defeat. She knows him well enough to see the fight's gone out of him; she's not concerned. Not for her safety, anyway.

More silence.

More buzzing.

"Derek's pissed, huh?" he asks after a moment.

 _I wonder why._

She doesn't respond.

"He barely spoke to me," Mark says now.

 _Join the club._ She doesn't want this conversation, this _all three of us in Manhattan_ conversation where she talks to Mark about Derek.

"Can you blame him?" she asks finally, when the silence has started to irritate her.

Mark smiles at this – with his mouth, anyway. The rest of his face looks ashamed.

"He kicked you out."

"Yeah." She looks down at the white blanket covering the bed.

"But you're staying in Seattle."

She nods, deciding not to remind him about said husband's threat to get a court order to keep her in Seattle.

"You could have come back to New York."

He doesn't have to say when.

He doesn't have to say why he's bringing it up, either: that he forgave her, flew to Seattle _for one reason, to bring you home_. To contrast himself with Derek. Mark has his own version of their shared history, and it's not like she can judge him too harshly when she's the queen of that, can she?

"I wanted to stay here." Her voice shakes a little. "I wanted to try to work it out with Derek."

"Does he want to work it out with you? Because he didn't seem to be trying too hard the last time."

"He was trying this time," she says carefully, "before you showed up again."

"Sorry," he says, not sounding very sorry at all.

She can't see him, but she can tell he's looking at her.

"You're really going to stay with him," he says after a moment.

She looks up at last. "He's my husband."

Mark is silent, hands shoved in his pockets. He doesn't meet her eyes, but she can see real pain on his face.

"Are you sorry?" he asks abruptly.

She thinks of the expression on his face when he learned of her first pregnancy.

And his expression when he recognized this one.

His emails: _did you forget what week this is?_

Too much pain for her to ignore.

She sighs. "I'm sorry you're hurting."

"You're sorry I'm hurting … but you're not sorry."

What can she say?

If not for the choice she made eight months ago, to end the pregnancy that had only just started, there would be no pregnancy now, no second trimester baby-she-can't-remember-to-call-a-fetus-when-he's-her-own. No chance to see Derek as an eager father-to-be, to witness the way he delights in the life growing within her. No chance for her to be a mother alongside the man with whom she's spent most of her adult life. No chance to meet the little life who's already started making an impression even before she's felt his movement stirring within her.

No chance to capture the dream she pushed down for so long she started to forget how much she wanted it.

... Is she sorry?

She doesn't respond.

He doesn't push it.

"I could have been a good father," that's what he says. His voice is rough and tinged with hurt. "If you'd kept the kid, I could have been a good father."

In truth, she doubts it.

Not because of anything intrinsic to Mark's nature – he was an affectionate adoptive uncle to the children of Derek's sisters, generally excellent with his pediatric patients – but because of the unutterably stressful circumstances of that baby's conception.

Would Mark have been a good father to _that_ baby?

He believes it. She knows he does, from the pained look in his eyes. She can't say it – _actually, no, Mark, you wouldn't have been a good father_ – not while her hand is resting on the pregnancy she did keep. She might as well cut him with a knife.

"Maybe you could have been," she concedes, quietly, "and you still can be someday … and I'm sorry … that it hurt you. That it still hurts you. I really am. But it was the right choice, Mark. Even though it was hard, it was the right choice."

He blinks. "You don't know that," he says. "You can't know that."

 _You're not God._

 _Excuse me?_

 _I'm sorry, honey, but you're not._

She sighs. "Go home, Mark."

He still has that lost-boy expression in his eyes. It's not hard to understand falling into it: maternally, the way Derek's mother must have when she took him under her wing all those decades ago, and … other ways, too. The way she did, the way so many other women have.

"Maybe I should stay a while."

"Mark."

"Derek might need a friend," he says stubbornly.

"He might, but probably not someone who slept with his wife, turned his world upside down … and then flew out here and did it again."

Mark doesn't respond, but she feels the change in the air as they decide, wordlessly, not to talk about the difficult things anymore.

"They keeping you overnight?" Mark asks neutrally now, gesturing with his chin toward her hospital bed.

 _God, I hope not._

..

They keep her overnight.

Just to monitor her, to monitor the baby.

 _It's a precaution._

Derek is on board, it seems; he's a dutiful husband at her side through the conversation, listening intently to MFM and resting what would ordinarily be a proprietary hand on the plastic guardrail of the bed.

(His left. Ringless.)

She stares at him; she can't help it. _Will things ever be okay again?_

She doesn't ask, because she doesn't want to know the answer. They speak in safe syllables: the baby's monitoring (perfect), calling Melissa (done, and she'll do it again), precautions (everyone loves precautions).

And then she urges him to work. _No reason to both of us to keep patients waiting_ , she says like she's joking.

He leaves with a reminder to eat her dinner, which she does with Miranda for company. It's hard to refuse to eat – even a tray of hospital food – when Miranda Bailey is cracking jokes about orange jello.

"Give it time," that's what Miranda says. "Everything is easier with time."

Is it, though? _Time_ is the subject of a few too many aphorisms.

 _The truth will come out. In time, it will come out. It always does. It just does._

It just did – and the damage it wrought stunned her even with all the time she spent fearing exactly that.

..

When her dinner tray is cleared and her room is empty, dim and quiet, it's impossible to do anything but think.

She finds one of her hands reaching for the plastic guardrail, not so differently from how Derek rested a palm on it during his last visit. Maybe the grip will keep her world from shifting again.

Because everything changes.

Everything keeps changing. Every time she turns around, every time she blinks.

She was just thinking, just before everything blew up, how quickly the new can become familiar. But this – this chaotic turn of events, this isn't going to be one of them.

It can't be.

 _God_ , she hopes it won't be.

..

Melissa stops in to check on her – in running shoes and a ponytail, clearly taking time away from her non-doctor life. Addison just smooths everything over: _Derek's working_ , she says – it's true, at least, after a fashion, and he's certainly been more attentive than she deserves anyway. Melissa sits with her for a while, her dedication apparent but just another source of guilt. They monitor the heartbeat together, Melissa assuring her again that she and the baby are both fine, promising that it's just a precaution to keep her. And reminding her that she needs rest.

Before she leaves, Melissa assures her she's only a phone call away. The MFM fellow who first played the heartbeat for them stops in to check on her, and then Belkin, the senior MFM on call. And everyone says the same thing:

 _Get some rest._

Easier said than done, when her life is falling apart.

She rests a hand on the bump where her son is growing – _their_ son, whether Derek hates her or not.

How many ways has she failed him? How many lies has she told, interspersed with just enough truth to make things worse?

A chill comes over the room as she thinks of how many people she's lied to.

 **One:** _Derek._ The simplest and the worst, first … her husband. She let the truth trickle out in the drips and drabs she could tolerate like reintroducing liquids after a virus. She gathered the crumbs of his partial forgiveness each time and prayed they could create a sum big enough to make everything work. Screw metaphor: she let her husband think she had a one night stand not just in spite of but _because_ she knew how hard it would be for both of them if she told the truth. She told herself she was protecting both of them, but maybe it was just herself. She hurt both of them … including herself. She told him she was sorry for everything (true) and she told him she wanted to move forward with him and the family they were building (true – _god_ , so true). _No more secrets,_ that's what she promised him in the hotel, and he believed in her.

 **Two:** _Mark._ She lived with him in New York for two months. She told him the rings were tight on her finger after all these years, she told him she didn't want people at the hospital to talk, she told him she was ready to move on. Lies … lies … and more lies. (Well. The rings were tight, but her grip on the past was tighter.) She let him believe in her, believe that her affection (true) and her devastation (true) could combine to make a relationship. And she hurt him too. She gets that: common denominator.

 **Three:** _Nancy._ It's a high position for her, third, but then she just left Seattle and her trademark Nancy bark-worse-than-bite support of Addison is enough to break her heart in retrospect. Nancy believed in her, believed her regret (true) and how much she wanted to make things work with Derek (true). She let Nancy needle Derek a bit, take her side; she basked in what it felt like to get support, even a little … because Nancy believed in her.

 **Four.** _Meredith._ So outré, really, adding her husband's former mistress to her list of victims. And yet Meredith was somehow involved in her pregnancy from the start, the most unusual of first confidantes. Catching her, cleaning up after her, even lying for her. Would she have done that if she knew about Addison's lies? If she knew that Derek's attempts to work on his marriage in lieu of pursuing a relationship with her were based on a deceptive foundation?

 **Five.** _Melissa._ This one stings. Lying to doctors – and she's still doing it! – is the bane of her practice. Honesty is always better; that's what she preaches to her own patients, that's what she demands and expects and values. And yet she looked Melissa right in the eyes, Melissa with her stupid wholesome marathons and her perfect non-elderly pregnancies, who was doing Nancy a favor by taking her on as a patient. She did that, and she lied. She signed her name to patient consent forms with _G1P1_ for all the world like a normal patient. She acted surprised (true) but hid the first unexpected pregnancy that, in uncomfortable truth, paved the way for the second.

 **Six.** _The baby._ This one just flat out hurts. But she's supposed to protect him. She's the only one, right now, who can. What did she do, instead? Coasted on the comfort of Derek's attention instead of telling him the truth in a way that might have preserved this innocent baby's family. She tries to communicate apology every time she rests a shaking palm on the bump where he's growing but it's never going to seem like enough.

 **Seven.** _Herself._ … yeah. This one's rough. She did it, though. She lied to herself so expertly it started to feel true and she started to believe, even for a moment, that everything was going to be okay.

 _The truth will come out_ , that's what Savvy said. _In time, it will come out. It always does. It just does._ Savvy, the only one she didn't lie to, who tried to encourage her to be honest before it was too late.

Is that what it is now?

Is this what _too late_ feels like?

All she knows is that she's too numb to cry – or cried out, perhaps – but wound too tightly to sleep.

She tries … but she can't.

By the time Addison's summoned her third doppler in thirty minutes, her concerns based on nothing more than her own stress, Belkin's back at her side to tell her Melissa recommends a mild anxiolytic.

"You're in the second trimester," her OB reminds her calmly over the phone while Belkin watches, an eyebrow raised in agreement, "and your ability to control your own stress is important to the baby's. I'm not saying superior classification, but I'm not _not_ saying it either."

Addison says nothing.

"You need to sleep."

Derek is there, then – he's holding her hand, he's agreeing with Melissa and with Belkin, and she wishes she didn't know his face well enough to grasp how unfair his position is.

The one she put him in.

She doesn't have the energy to fight: she consents, and then she sleeps.

..

"Are you _sure_ you don't mind?" he asks Meredith.

"I'm sure." She starts to walk away, then turns back. "Derek? Tell Addison I hope she feels better."

"She's asleep."

"That's good," Meredith offers. "Right?"

"Right." Derek looks down. "That's good."

..

Her medicated sleep is heavy and dreamless, the breakfast she forces down _for the baby_ a rock in her stomach, and with one more precautionary round of labs it's nearly noon by the time the paperwork is processed.

They have to discharge her to someone – even if it's a farce, even if it's her workplace, she's still a liability in more ways than one.

It's Derek who signs her paperwork – Derek, whose hair is rumpled like his head was in his hands all night, who's wearing clean scrubs but clearly hasn't left the hospital. It's Derek who helps her gather her things and drives her back to the trailer without asking her questions like, _why did you lie about everything ever all the time,_ or _why did you ruin the good thing we had for two seconds_ , or _why did I marry such a total fuck-up in the first place._

He's quiet. Neutrally solicitous. He doesn't repeat his threat from the on-call room, _I want you out of the trailer_ , or anything close to that. He carries her bag to the trailer door and then he takes Doc's collar and moves him gently away as the dog strains to leap up on her.

Even in his weaker condition, he's eager to greet her, and she finds herself touched.

 _At least someone likes me._

And then suddenly horrified, she grasps her husband's sleeve. "Doc – he was alone last night – "

"It's okay."

"No, but Derek, he needs – "

" – he wasn't alone." Derek helps her off with her coat, so that his voice comes from behind her. "Someone checked on him. Took him out and fed him. He's fine, Addie. Don't worry about him."

 _Someone._

She has a fleeting wonder if Derek updated _someone_ on her latest betrayal, but it passes quickly. There's too much else in her head.

Confusion.

Sadness.

The slow, painful gelling of the plan that started to form in the hospital.

Inside the trailer, Derek is moving purposefully but slowly, seeming very tired and heavy-limbed, as he hangs his coat and hers, encourages her to sit down, brings her a bottle of water. Doc climbs onto the couch too, settling next to her with some effort, but neither she nor Derek comments on his mobility. She just rubs a hand through his fur, grateful for the nearness of his warm furry body.

Derek is fixing the bedclothes – Doc clearly slept right in the middle, as if both master and mistress shared the bed last night. Then he's starting coffee, boiling water for tea without asking her. _Keeping busy._

It's … companionable, even calm, except for the subtle underlay of discomfort.

Except for his words echoing in her head.

 _I want you out of the trailer._

He's being kind, and she could try to ride the wave. He brings her a cup of tea, sits as a respectable distance at the tiny kitchen table while she and Doc take up the couch.

 _I want you out immediately._

Let him wait on her in the guise of helping the baby, let herself be vulnerable enough that a little bit of his old love for her might sneak in the cracks of his anger and disappointment.

 _We're done._

… she could take advantage of him.

Except she can't.

She has to do this.

She has to be strong for both of them.

"Derek?"

He looks up.

"I've been doing … well, I've done some thinking," she says quietly. "In the hospital, and – in the car."

He nods. "About?" he prompts when she doesn't continue.

"I know you're – angry with me," she says carefully. "And you have a right to be."

His face is impassive.

"And I understand that you need some time." She pushes her hair out of her eyes. "And space. I get that. I get all of it. And you – you deserve it, you deserve a break from me."

"Addison."

"No, just, um, I guess I'm just asking you not to make any … major decisions. Yet. You know, the books say you're not supposed to, when you're pregnant … ."

"Addison."

She starts talking again before he can: "I know you want me to leave the trailer – "

" _Addison._ " He's frowning when she looks at him. "You don't need to leave the trailer."

There's a faint flicker of hope – he's willing, he'll let her stay – but she forces it down. _No more painting over things, Addie. That's how all this started in the first place._

"Derek ... you need space," she says, using all her strength to forge ahead. "We need space, if we're going to ... we need space, after everything," she amends. "We never had it, not really. So I, uh, booked a room at the Archfield."

His brow crinkles. "When did you – "

"This morning." She twists her rings around her finger. "I booked a room and I'm, um, I'm going to stay there … for a little while."

Derek is looking past her now, toward the windows where a light rain is falling against the trailer, so she has to read the set of his shoulders instead of his face: easy enough … after this many years, his body could fill the pages of a novel and she's read every word.

"The Archfield," Derek repeats. "Savvy's hotel."

Employer of the prenatal masseuse who broke her first secret to Derek. To think she was so worried about that one. And then the site of that first trickling admission in the bathtub – something else she feared, worried, when it was only a fraction of what she should have confessed.

"Savvy's, and Nancy's too."

Derek maintains his gaze out the window for a few long beats of silence before he stands up. She finds herself inhaling a little as he approaches, whether out of anticipation or just to breathe him in she's not sure.

He sits down – on the arm of the couch, not next to her, but still close.

"You don't need to go," he says quietly, his soft tone going right to the core of her so that she has to steel herself.

She doesn't remind him of his words, _I want you out of the trailer._ After almost twelve years of marriage, she's used to his blowing off verbal steam; this is different. This is her decision, and she needs him to know that.

"I appreciate that, Derek. Really. But – I think maybe I do need to go."

There are conflicting emotions playing across his face. "I'm not sure you should be alone right now," he says stiffly. "For your health, and the baby's."

She smiles sadly. "I'm okay. Really. I was … worked up, yesterday … but it was one time. Life at the Archfield isn't going to be that exciting. Maybe a little pay-per-view, a massage or two … that's it. We'll be okay."

He tilts his head, looking at her.

She realizes she didn't specify which _we_ she meant.

..

 _I think maybe I do need to go._

The pit in his stomach that opened up with Mark's arrival is still there. More like a crater, maybe. He fills it with tasks; his mother would be pleased. _When in doubt, keep busy._ He helps her pack, folding and rolling clothes to her exacting specifications rather than grabbing her and asking her to reconsider.

Not that he would do that:

Tell her he's sorry.

Tell her he didn't mean it.

Tell her not to go.

He just … helps her pack, and a strange but relievedly automatic productivity takes over the trailer. Tactfully, he pretends to be busy rinsing his coffee cup when she sits down beside Doc to stroke his muzzle and whisper what he presumes are goodbyes into his floppy ears.

It's the most reluctant she's seemed to go, lingering at the dog's side.

"I'll take good care of him." Derek clears his throat a little. "While you're gone, I mean."

Addison looks up, tears in her eyes. "I know you will," she says softly.

For a lingering moment they just look at each other.

 _Stay._

She breaks the eye contact first. "I should – we should go," she tells the floor as she stands, brushing imagined lint off her skirt.

The key's barely turned in the ignition, Addison gazing resolutely out the window with sunglasses blocking her eyes, when he stops.

"Wait," he says. "This isn't – just wait."

His heart pounds; he's not a man who surprises himself, not really. What is he doing?

She looks over, apparently as curious as he is.

"I don't like this idea," he admits. "The Archfield – it's far. I think you should be closer."

"To the hospital?"

"To me," he says patiently. "In case you need something."

"There's a full staff at the Archfield," she reminds him.

"Yes, I remember." He pauses. "What about the place you stayed when you got here? The – whatever inn?"

"That's not what it was called." But she smiles, just barely.

"You know what I mean. That place was a ten minute drive from my land."

"I didn't like that inn much," she confesses, wrinkling her nose a little. "I picked it because I knew you bought land on Bainbridge even if you wouldn't let me see it and … because I thought you might like the inn."

He raises his eyebrows.

"You know, it was all … rustic or whatever," she continues.

"The rustic or whatever inn." He feels the corners of his mouth twitch. "There's the name."

"Derek … ."

..

Marriage is a give and take. That's what the counselor used to say.

That's how she ends up back at the Inn at Bainbridge, which is a much more pretentious name than their joint nickname, even though she wasn't thrilled with it the first time around. Not the trailer, not the Archfield, but here, at the rustic-or-whatever inn.

Derek drives her, and carries her things in, and even helps her unpack.

That part she doesn't mind.

She sits on the chintzy but admittedly comfortable armchair to direct him – pregnancy privilege.

"Not like that, it's going to crease!"

"Addison." He sounds exasperated. "Do you want to hang up your own things?"

"You know I do. You're the one who said I should rest."

He makes a face, but goes back to hanging.

"I could be at the Archfield right now," she reminds her, "paying someone to hang my things _without_ creases."

"You could," he acknowledges. "You could … but you're not." He turns to the closet, then back to her. "There. Is that non-creased enough for you?"

She walks over to examine the blouse in question.

"It'll do."

"Okay, then." He pushes the hanger aside and reaches for the next piece, then glances at her. "Sit."

"I'm tired of sitting," she admits.

"Then stand." His tone is light, like they're just settling into any old hotel room. "But make yourself useful, at least, and tell me what this is."

He holds up a silky piece. "Pajamas? Scarf? Handkerchief?"

"It's a camisole," she says with dignity, taking it from him. They have a brief and very light tug-of-war – muscle memory, that's all, before she makes her way to the dresser to find a home for it.

She can't sleep in a hotel room until everything is unpacked; Derek, it seems, remembers because they proceed this way until her suitcase is empty.

She actually reaches in and comes up with a handful of air before she realizes they're finished.

And if they're finished, that means he's leaving.

 _You're the one who wanted this,_ she reminds herself, _he would have let you stay._

"Derek …?"

He looks at her.

"You said we were done."

She's not even sure why she's reminding him, and the words leave a hollow feeling inside her.

He studies the carpet for a moment. "I'm sorry," he says after a moment. "I'm sorry I said that."

He doesn't clarify any further.

She finds herself resting a hand on her bump, and it doesn't seem to escape his notice. There's shame in his voice when he speaks again: "I didn't mean it," he says quietly, his gaze on the same spot. "I know you wouldn't – "

"I know," she says, cutting him off – not sure whether it's to spare his discomfort or because she can't bear to relive it.

"I'll, uh, I'll take care of him. When you're not here, I mean."

Her cheeks burn. He seems like he wants to say something, but then he stops.

"Don't forget to eat."

She cups the contours of her bump, smiling in spite of herself. "He'd remind me even if I did."

Derek smiles a little too, at this. "Good boy," he says.

They look at each other for moment and she's seized with a sudden fearsome realization.

When they're done … he's leaving.

And even though this was her idea and even though she's convinced it's the right call, apparently no one told her primitive cavewoman brain that because panic speeds up her words.

 _When all else fails, keep talking._

She's been filling awkward silences with words for years. It's not Derek's fault: this is something she learned before she could even write her name in cursive and she's not likely to unlearn it, not anytime soon.

So she finds herself following him to the entryway, keeping up a stream of monologue about the benefits of the inn, pretty sure she couldn't stop at this point even if she wanted to.

"And I think the breakfast here is actually the only decent thing, so there's that. I don't know if you remember, but the coffee wasn't very good when I was here the last time, but if you want to meet for coffee this time, they actually took my advice the last time and started stocking beans from the other place after I talked to the chef." She pauses for breath. "Do you want to? Meet for coffee, I mean? In the morning. You need to drink coffee in the morning."

He looks, for a moment, like he feels sorry for her, and shame flushes her cheeks.

"There's coffee in the trailer," he says quietly.

"Right. Of course. And it's the good coffee too, so … ." She bought it herself. "You do know where to get more, thought, Derek, right? If you run out?"

 _Stop talking, Addison, you sound like an idiot._

But Derek just nods. "I know where to get more," he says quietly.

"That's good." She pastes on a smile.

 _This was your idea, Addie. Yours._

"Okay, then." Derek puts on his jacket with deliberate, careful movements, like he's gowning up. "Try to get some rest tonight, please. If you need anything, you can call me."

"I need you." She hates herself in that moment, _so much_ , but the words spill out of her anyway. "That's what I need."

"Addison …." His eyes look troubled. Not angry, but troubled.

He sighs a little.

"I'm sorry," she whispers.

She closes the space between them before he can say anything else, wrapping her arms around his neck, like some … alien force is commanding her. Maybe it's the baby's fault, some _Parent Trap_ stage of fetal development where he tries to get his parents back together. Or it's just that Derek smells so good and if she closes her eyes, she can pretend she hasn't ruined everything.

"Derek, I'm sorry, I know I said I would give you space and I do want to, it's just – "

"Addison, don't do this." His voice is very quiet and close to her ear and she can hear every word. "Don't get upset," he says softly. "Don't get worked up. Just … don't make this any harder than it already is."

His arms come up around her back though, holding her in turn. It feels so good in that moment she can pretend he wants to instead of feeling like he has to, that he wants _her_ instead of wanting their baby … and wanting to leave her alone in this hotel room.

"I'm sorry," she says miserably from where her face is pressed against his shoulder.

"I know you are." He shifts his grip – he always used to do that, loosening his arms and then wrapping her up again with an even closer hold – it was just part of how he did things. Maybe she didn't appreciate it enough at the time. "I know," he repeats.

He holds her like that – silently, nicely, without grudge or complaint, in the little entryway thing by the door, for a long time.

And she's torn, because it's … _nice_. Except maybe it's nice because he's already started the process of getting over her, because he's turning her into … something platonic, a co-parent, a friend, a sibling, someone he can hold without feelings getting in the way.

Still … it's nice.

Nice enough that she's much calmer when she draws back.

"I'm okay," she tells him when he looks at her.

He nods, his gaze flickering to the door and then back.

"If you're sick," he says, "or if you're worried you'll be sick, or not … safe, tell me. I can stay."

His face looks so open. She can't look into it and lie, not after everything. "No, I'm not sick. I'll be okay."

"Okay." He leans in and kisses her forehead. "Get some rest, and I'll see you tomorrow."

She nods.

He doesn't move, though.

His gaze slides down her body, and then one of his palms rises slightly. "Can I … ?" He sounds bashful, hesitant.

Not quite trusting her voice, she nods again.

Gently, so gently it almost hurts, he rests a hand on her bump, leaning down and directing his voice the same way he's been doing each night.

The same except they're both standing up.

In a hotel room.

About to separate.

It's the same except … everything is different.

"Good night, baby," Derek begins quietly, as he has every time, "I'm, uh, I'm going to go, but everything is going to be okay" – _god,_ how she'd like to believe that – "you're going to keep working on those toenails and I'm going to keep working on my baritone" – and she'd smile if she didn't have to work all her facial muscles to keep from crying.

"Don't kick yet," he adds, "because I really don't want to miss it."

He pauses, looking up at Addison.

Once again, she just nods, not trusting her voice – he seems to understand it's a wordless restatement of their agreement that she contact him the moment she feels their unborn son's movements from inside her.

"But you can kick if it feels right," he amends, directing his words to the baby, "it's okay," and she smiles a little even though her eyes are stinging. He's quiet for a moment and she wonders if he's finished.

"I'm sorry I won't be here tonight, but I'm going to see you tomorrow." His hand moves a little, cupping her belly carefully so she can feel the warmth of his palm through her shirt. His head is lowered, his gaze focused on her bump where their baby is growing. "I love you," he says quietly, and she wouldn't admit this to anyone, not even Savvy, but she pretends for just a moment he's addressing those three words to her. "Be good while I'm gone," he adds, and he says it so – earnestly, so openly, without any hint of self-consciousness that she could cry.

He says just one more thing to their baby before he stands up straight again, and it seals the deal.

She will cry.

… but not until he leaves.

He deserves that much from her.

..

 _Take care of your mom._

His parting words to their unborn son, and he half expected Addison to scold him for … fetal sexism. Something like that.

But she didn't.

Space: that's what she says she's giving him.

It what she says he wants from her.

It's an unfair facet of human anatomy, though, that space from his wife means space from his son.

And space from his son is the last thing he wants.

He didn't work today – they were both off, as if the universe knew their world was about to explode. Did they have plans? Idly, he tries to remember, but he can't think of anything.

Which is probably good.

It's been one long chest-tightening breath since Mark showed up, threw an axe right in the center of the family photos he'd let himself imagine. Any more focus on what their _family_ would have been doing, should have been doing … would just make it worse.

And Addison is fine.

He picks up his phone, turns it over in his hand, and puts it down again.

Twice.

She's _fine_. He has no doubt that Addison can take care of herself, pregnant or not, and that her on-call room crisis was – a fluke, a moment of terrible stress, a one-off. And despite the things he said to her – the things he knows she remembers – he's well aware that she can take care of their unborn child. Now, as always, he has confidence in her medical judgment.

… that was never the issue.

So she's fine, and the baby's fine.

She wanted space. She said _he_ wanted space.

And now they have it.

Which is fine.

He's just … gotten used to having her around here, is the thing.

In spite of himself, he's gotten used to it again.

So he pours a drink and sips it sitting at the kitchen table, face propped in his fist like he wouldn't if she were here, Doc leaning against his legs companionably. He takes the dog for a gentle evening walk, sticking close to the trailer. It's quiet; he hadn't quite realized how accustomed he'd grown to what he's embarrassed to admit felt like leisurely family walks.

Doc seems tired, though, and he doesn't want to push it. Back inside, he feeds him and spends some time crouched on the floor encouraging him to eat, which seems to help.

And then he sits back on his heels and surveys the trailer. It's not messy – Addison wouldn't leave a mess behind – but it still has the feeling of tumult. Carefully covered chaos.

Missing pieces where her things used to be.

She did a good job packing; Addison's a champion packer. But she let him help so maybe it's his fault that not everything is gone: there are bits of scraps left around like Hansel and Gretl except that instead of finding her way back, she left.

The shower still smells of her shampoo.

His pillow smells like her when he lies on top of the covers, alone.

He stares at the ceiling.

At a meaningful bark from the bedside he leans down to help Doc climb up next to him – it's not easy, but the reward is the dog's warm furry body settling in beside his.

Dog whines softly, though, nosing his palm.

"I know, buddy." He scratches the dog's ears gently. "I know. I miss her too."

He admits it to the empty trailer, to a response no more judgmental than a quiet snuffle as Doc settles down next to him on the bed that oddly feels too large tonight.

..

She lies alone on the still-made bed, freshly showered, still dizzy from the events of the last two days.

… figuratively dizzy. Not literally. If anyone can tell the difference, she can.

It's all a blur.

She should call Savvy and unload – tell her what _the truth will come out in time_ looks like, just as she predicted and tried to stave off. She could tell her _you were right_ , but she's known Savvy long enough to know that her friend only craves those words from her adversaries, not from Addison.

She could call Savvy, and she will … but there's someone else she needs to talk to first.

Settling back against the covers, she draws a deep breath.

"… hi," she says quietly.

There's no answer – she's not expecting one.

"So … this is the Inn at Bainbridge, also known as the Rustic-or-Whatever Inn," Addison continues, aloud, still lying alone on the bed with one hand now resting on her lower belly. "That's the name Daddy and I made up. We prefer it."

Her throat tightens. _Daddy._

"And so – um, like your dad said before, it's just the two of us here, right now." She keeps narrating, the habit she's developed, even without Derek here to chime in.

She wonders if the baby misses his voice as much as she does.

"That's my fault. Your dad, he wanted to be with you, but he's – but he's in the trailer." She pauses. "Oh, your grandmother would be _so_ horrified that you've heard the word _trailer_ already, in the womb. Not just heard – you lived in one. I know, it's a really fancy, expensive one, but she wouldn't get the difference. And I guess it doesn't matter anyway, because now we're here."

She pauses for breath.

"I know I said everything was going to be okay, the other night."

"And I'm sorry," she says, moving her hand in the same small, rhythmic circle over her own flesh that's becoming second nature. "I'm so sorry, baby. All I wanted for you was _not_ to saddle you with lousy parents and – well. You hit the jackpot with your dad, you really did. I know he's going to be great."

 _That's all I was doing the last time, you know. I was protecting her from us. She's better off._

"So, yeah. You're getting a great dad. You have one already. Your mom, though?" She pauses. "Well, I've already screwed a lot of things up and I'm not even a mom yet, not officially. It's my fault we're living in a hotel. It's my fault your dad isn't here. He wanted to be here. And we both want you. We want you so much. We just, um, we just need a little space, but … ." Her voice trails off. Foolish though it may sound, she doesn't want to assure the baby of anything she can't deliver. But even though her body is still exhausted from the ordeal of the last 36 hours, her mind still buzzing, her heart still aching … "it's okay," she says softly. "It's going to be okay."

She swallows hard.

"So many people love you," she continues. "Me." And she smiles a little, remembering the long ago days when the embryo who would become her breakfast-loving baby was the only other one who shared her secret. "And Daddy." She swallows hard. "Your Aunt Savvy. And Aunt Nancy – she was just here, and I think I won't be able to keep her away once you're born. Your other aunts, too, and your cousins. I'll read you their emails again if you want. So many cousins, and I know you're going to love them. And your Montgomery side – well. _Love_ isn't really their thing, and they don't technically know about you yet, but … this has to be your dad's influence, but I'm actually kind of optimistic, to be honest."

She draws a deep breath.

"Here's the thing, baby: I _promise_ I'm going to do whatever I can to fix this. And to make sure your life is good. No matter what happens. I've got your back, okay?" She pauses. "And you've got my … uterus."

She laughs a little. There are still tears in her eyes from before, but it's okay.

It's different.

It's painful, and it won't be easy

But she thinks it might actually be okay … and that may be the best they can hope for, right now. She's still cradling her bump, _hope_ the last taste on her tongue as she slips into sleep.

* * *

 _To be continued on next week's QPQ Sunday. Keep being the best readers ever and I'll keep updating on QPQ Sundays. I know it's a hard road for these two, but they need to make their way back to each other - which means doing some thinking alone and together ... getting the space they never got when the Sheplet made his surprise appearance. No spoilers, of course, but they wouldn't have this distance if it wouldn't bring them closer together. So stick with me and I think you won't regret it. I hope everyone has a great Sunday and don't forget to feed your writer. I run on reviews like Addek runs on angst, so keep me going._

 _See you next Sunday!_


	23. The New Normal

**A/N:** HEY. I am alive and so is QPQ Sunday, though we're clearly both a little rusty and uncertain. I appreciate, more than you know, all the reviews and messages in my absence asking about this story. And I'm sorry I've been gone so long. You left very thoughtful responses to the tough chapters following Mark's arrival. So we start this chapter with a mini time jump; read on, and it will - I hope - make sense. Mostly, I hope you'll enjoy this chapter after the story's long hiatus. Writing fic is a hobby but Addek is serious business, and this story isn't going anywhere.

Thank you again for all your support.

* * *

 _ **The New Normal**_

 _Gestational Age: Eighteen weeks, three days  
Baby is the Size of a: sweet potato (preferably fried)  
Baby's Mother: lives in a hotel  
Baby's Father: doesn't  
Nights Apart So Far: six (exactly)  
Nights Left in Pregnancy: one hundred forty nine (approximately)  
Amount of Work it Takes to Make This Feel Normal: lots  
Extent to Which This Doesn't Feel Normal at All: lots  
.._

Addison's morning starts the same way all the others have: with the insistent ringing of a telephone jarring her awake – butting into a rather nice misty-edged dream that she'd rather not leave behind.

"Phone," she mumbles sleepily in her husband's general direction, avoiding the issue. The telephone is closer to his side, okay? It's only fair.

But it's still ringing; apparently Derek is having a nice dream too. Nothing like two avoiders in a marriage.

" _Derek_ … ." She says it a little louder this time, squeezing her eyes closed, trying to hang onto sleep. What time is it, anyway, and who would call this early on a –

Oh.

 _Oh._

Reality hits hard, once again, as she fumbles on her own for the receiver and drags it to her ear.

"Dr. Shepherd? This is the front desk," chirps a voice far too cheerful for this early and this … reality. "You requested a daily wake-up call at this time," the voice persists.

She just blinks, sitting up, trying to orient herself.

"Dr. Shepherd?"

"… I'm here," she says.

 _Wherever that is._

..

His morning starts in a way that should, by now, feel familiar.

He's half asleep – it's very dark, still, which he's not too tired to know is due in part to his own forearm, thank you very much – when Doc's cool, damp nose interferes with the peaceful strands of a dream.

"I'll take him out," he mumbles in the direction of his apparently still-sleeping wife, one hand moving automatically onto Doc's wiry-soft scruff, a promise they'll be outdoors soon.

Doc noses him again, his breathing eager and not particularly labored, always a reassuring sign in the morning. Addison will be pleased.

"Good boy." He ruffles the dog's fur before he fully opens his eyes, then crooks his arm, preparing to vault over his wife's supine body … carefully. She insists on sleeping on the good side these days, and he can't argue with her, because she's –

 _Not here._

He interrupts his own thoughts with a palm flat on the fitted sheet, prepared to launch himself over the empty spot where his wife's body should be.

 _Used to be_ , he corrects himself, removing the value judgment and writing over it with habit. It's less permanent that way.

Doc whimpers a little then, probably because of his bladder – Derek hastens to get them both out of the trailer.

But it occurs to him, as they tromp together through dew-spattered grass in the misty dawn light – that the dog sounded a little mournful, almost as if he'd lost something, and wasn't quite sure where to find it.

..

Let's be clear about one thing: it may not be that new, not anymore.

But what they're doing – she doesn't want to get used to it.

And it's definitely not where she thought she'd be, eighteen weeks and three days into the pregnancy she'd given up hoping for.

Six nights into living apart from Derek.

Seven nights into the new normal, the one that started when Mark showed up, throwing a flaming torch into the happiness she and Derek built in his absence.

But here she is, alone in the Rustic or Whatever Inn, one hand resting on the sweet potato and the other prodding at her unfortunately exhausting looking face as she stares at her reflection in the mirror. _Not showing_ is a distant memory at this point, and she's embarrassed to admit the changes in her body aren't half as enjoyable without Derek here to admire her growing profile.

That feels wrong, so she turns slightly to the side, ignoring the memories that swim past her hazy reflection: Derek in the trailer, giving her that slow-smirky grin as she dressed in the morning. The way his hands would slide over silky fabric in bed at night, his palms alone enough to transmit his excitement at the evidence of her pregnancy.

 _One, two, three._

And she's done. _Three_ is the amount of time she's allotted to wallowing – determined on the morning after the first night at the inn – because she can't do it If she wallows, she'll cry, and if she cries, she won't stop.

Numbers are safer than words. Order is better than feeling.

She's a surgeon, after all. She was a surgeon before she was a mother. Depending on your opinion of interns … she was even a surgeon before she was a wife.

And she's still a surgeon now.

Keep it clean, keep it precise.

And above all … just keep going.

"More coffee, Dr. Shepherd?"

She nods, thanking her server and warning herself not to fall into the small talk trap just because she misses having someone to talk to in the mornings. Someone to smile about her breakfast-loving baby and his effect on her appetite.

 _Look at me, I'm eating oatmeal._

No one looks at her, though.

She sits in the inn's dining room with its wide windowed doors thrown open to the warm morning air. There's an awning to protect diners from the ever-present rain, and no one else at breakfast is eating alone.

Once, she wasn't alone here. Derek sat across from her, at breakfast, and there was tension between them then but there was also coffee – decent coffee, once she got her hooks in the chef.

But she's not going to think about that. Not right now.

It's one of the rules, and it's an important one.

Like taking only to the count of three to wallow.

 _One, two, three._

She reminds herself briskly that all the foggy sentimental memories of her pregnancy in the trailer, mornings that smelled of strong brewed coffee and misty lakeside air, Doc barking at their sides as they strolled together … stretched out side by side in bed at night, ice clinking in Derek's glass, making plans, getting excited … letting herself believe …

It wasn't true.

That's what Derek said, in the on-call room: _nothing here has been real!_

And it's her fault.

So she doesn't get to be sad about it.

… but she's human. And this is sad. It's _sad_ , and sometimes she has to wallow.

Her eyes drift closed and her stomach tightens, remembering the way he'd open the car door for her, solicitous, something like pride in his eyes when he scanned the obvious curves of her body.

 _One, two, three._

She opens her eyes and draws a deep breath. She's done; she has to be.

That's the rule.

..

… it's one of the rules, anyway, for this new and confusing life of hers. There are several.

 **Rule One.** _Stay busy._ She's good at that – lots of practice – whether it's reading feverishly in the solitary hotel room at night or slashing red pen all over her fellows' charts when she runs out of her own paperwork. Idle hands are the devil's workers, that's what she remembers one of Bizzy's maids – temporary, always temporary – saying when she was a child. Who needs the devil when you have your own checkered past to catch up with you, though?

 **Rule Two.** _Play the part._ Another trick she learned when she was too young to realize how screwed up it was. Maybe she'll call Bizzy to thank her. (She won't.) The key is that even when everything inside of her is screaming that this isn't normal, this could never _be_ normal, wants to grab her own shoulders and shake herself out of this – she doesn't. She can't. She dresses carefully and applies flattering makeup and fastens tasteful jewelry and when things get too hard, there's always Rule Three.

 **Rule Three.** _You get three seconds for wallowing: no more, no less._ It's not an easy rule, but it's an important one. Memories hurt and denial works and she'll get therapy some other time, okay? Right now, it's about survival. Three seconds: just long enough to taste the edge of the pain and not long enough to lose herself in it. _One, two, three._ That's it. Then get back to work. Make small talk, read a book, mark up a chart, call Savvy, organize the cash in your wallet by serial number if you have to, but three seconds. That's it. Move on.

 **Rule Four.** _Keep your hands to yourself._ Idle hands may be the devil's workers but Derek's hands are something else entirely, so she makes sure his hands stay on his person and hers away from him altogether. No touching. Touching leads to things they aren't doing right now just like wallowing leads to things she can't feel right now. It's simple: she sees Derek at work, every day, and she speaks to him on the phone every night and some days she does more of one of those or the other but the rule doesn't change. Hands to herself, no matter how much she might want to pinch him to see if it's real, or how much she misses the feel of his skin. She's kept this rule unfailingly since her unwise decision, the first day in the hotel room, to wrap her arms around his neck and ask him to stay with her. Her cheeks burn with the memory of her own pathetic request and the gentle way he held her in response … but she appreciates, in this new tactile vacuum, that after all they've been through together, her last sense memory of his expressive hands is such a tender one.

 **Rule Five.** _It's about the baby._ That one isn't too hard, not really. It's more reminding herself of the fact. When Derek asks how she's doing, when he tilts his head in that familiar way and she sees his eyes soften, she reminds herself, every time: _it's about the baby._ He's worried about her because she's carrying his child and she's allowed to worry about him back because he's the father of that child and everything is fine. It's fine, okay?

 **Rule Six.** _Everything is fine._ The supreme rule of all. She says it so many times a day it's lost all meaning. She says it to well meaning colleagues at the hospital and even patients who notice her pregnancy. To Richard when he passes her in the hallway, and Callie Torres when they exchange knowing glances in the cafeteria. To Melissa during frequent, brief check-in calls. In email or on the telephone to her sisters-in-law, every one of them. To Derek. And only one of those people has ever questioned it; _fine_ is a full sentence, most of the time.

Rules are good. Rules help. Rules mean she's keeping it together.

Right?

..

How was it Addison described the weather in Seattle? Oh, yes: _disgustingly temperate._

Summer is tapping at the windows of the trailer, but the actual thermometer hasn't climbed much. The air is rich and moist – his wife would call it humid and wrinkle her nose, of course – and the rain is frequent. Not that he's complaining: that frequent rain is what leaves his land so green, so alive. It's responsible for the mist rolling off the lake in the morning and the stunning height of the old growth trees across the property.

So he should be happy now, living alone, that no one is around to complain that the remarkable environmental achievements of the Pacific Northwest – the incomparable multi-dependent ecosystem – is less important than the texture of her hair.

(Or, for that matter, to turn it back on him, pointing out that he doesn't exactly leave his own hair to chance.)

There's no one to fight over the shower in the room … but there's no one to share It, either, and he brushes that rather embarrassing thought aside as Doc pants happily by his side.

They're walking – slowly – in that temperate misty weather he's come to think of as home. Surely it's better for healing canine lungs, anyway, and Addison is nothing if not solicitous of Doc's health.

Their time in the trailer together, since Addison's pregnancy, was short. A blip. He lived in the trailer alone before she flew out here and marched back into his life. And he lives here alone again.

Back to normal – isn't that right?

 _None of this has been real!_ That's what he shouted at her in that claustrophobic little room, and he recalls it with embarrassing hindsight now that he knows the way the fight ended.

Would it matter, if he were to retrace his words, if he admitted that it was more of a fear than an accusation?

He doesn't want to do this.

He doesn't want to go over, and over, and over what's happened.

What's done is done: for the two of them, and for the past in New York he's only learned of. It's done.

And he's well aware that mulling over it will accomplish exactly nothing. He picks up a damp stick and holds it out to Doc – _fetch_ is quite a bit gentler these days – and the dog presses a cool wet nose against him in appreciation, then turns and shakes his muddy coat.

If Addison were here right now, she'd laugh at Doc's antics and pretend to be upset about the dirty water. An outsider might think the annoyance was real, but then an outsider wouldn't know her. Addison never left for work looking anything other than perfect, but the trailer was home enough for her, apparently, that she treated it the way he'd seen her treat their shared living spaces for years: reading glasses akimbo, oversized pajamas, sensible footwear for rougher weather. He shakes away an image of her in a jeans and wellies, her hair semi shielded from the rain with his old fishing hat, laughing outraged while he tried to teach her how to avoid poison oak.

But she's not here.

It's just him … and Doc. He ruffles the damp fur on top of the dog's head. "Come on, boy." He turns and leads them both back to the empty trailer.

..

There are constants, still. A few. In the new normal, she still boards the ferry every day, even though she could drive the extra distance instead.

Why? Not for the fresh air.

Not that it's unpleasant out, exactly. It's not hot, anyway. No, she's learned that Seattle is disgustingly temperate. But summer has increased the temperature just enough, along with the tourist population in Seattle, that she's tempted to grab random people on the ferry and shake them. _Why can't you visit somewhere else?_ That's what she'd ask, _why can't you visit somewhere without rain, somewhere the seasons actually change and I don't have to see how cheerful you are?_

She doesn't do it, of course. She smooths down her hair because the ever-present frizz still isn't her style and checks as discreetly as she can for Derek's familiar shape on the deck. As she has each morning, she's never quite sure if she'd rather see him or _not_ see him.

No Derek.

What she does see is a youngish couple pressed eagerly against the safety bar, her long hair blowing in the temperate wind and his arm curled protectively around her back.

She lets longing wash over her like the water against the sides of the ferry.

 _No, Addie. You chose this, and you don't get to miss him._

Instinctively, she rests a hand against her bump – protective, apologetic, and she sees a woman wearing a chunky infant in a front pack gives her a knowing smile; Addison looks down and knows it's too warm to keep her pregnancy a secret. She's aware she's joined a club to which she'd more or less given up expecting an invitation. Her first trimester may have been characterized by secrets, but there are limited opportunities to hide now.

Which is – good?

She reminds herself of this, sparing a little patience for the remaining question mark.

..

He doesn't seek her out on the ferry, not specifically, but her bright hair is hard to hide and he scans his fellow passengers out of habit.

Once, months before he learned of her pregnancy – which, he's not likely to forget any time soon, was quite a bit after she learned of it – he stood in this very spot where the warm breeze is moving his hair and looked down to see Addison standing at the bow, looking up at him almost shyly. She waved, and he was filled with anger – with annoyance that she was here, in his new life, and he turned away in disgust.

(He never looked back, but he didn't have to. A decade and a half with Adison and he didn't need to look at her to know the disappointed expression that must have crossed her face.)

That was new, then.

And this is new, now.

He's a man who moved across the country in one fevered night, who traded urban living for a trailer in the woods. Anything new can become normal.

He, of all people, should know this.

So why hasn't it worked yet?

..

She spends a few minutes in her car that morning reminding herself of the rules – and the extra time pays off, because she's able to force a purposeful bounce into her step and she knows there's not a hair out of place. Which is good, because the next part of the morning is the same as all the others, too.

"Hi."

She glances up as if she's surprised to see him. As if she doesn't coordinate these morning run-ins with the precision of an air traffic controller. As if this isn't _normal_ now.

As if she hasn't already scanned his face and determined, from the set of it, how much he slept the night before. As if she doesn't need a quick _one, two, three_ before she can speak.

"… Hi," she says.

"How's the hotel?" The same question, every morning.

"It's rustic," she says, "or whatever."

He looks, for a split second, like he's fighting a smile.

"But you slept?" he asks.

"No, I had an all-night dance party."

He doesn't seem particularly amused.

"I was tired," she continues, unable to help herself, "but I did a few lines to stay awake, and that helped."

"Addison." He sounds impatient now.

 _Good. It's better if you don't like me._

Somewhere in the back of her imagination, a white daisy petal falls to the ground. _He likes me not._

"Yes, I slept," she says, although she knows she sounds tired. "And yes, so did the baby."

Derek smiles slightly at this. "But he hasn't – "

"Moved? No. Not that I can feel. I already promised I would tell you when he did, Derek."

"I know you did."

 _You've promised a lot of things in the past_ , that's what he doesn't say.

"How's Doc?" she asks.

"He's hanging in there."

Every morning. Every time. She recalls their joke, Doc as _our first baby_ , and they trade updates on both _babies_ as a matter of course. She has to take a brief _one two three_ of wallowing when it reminds her of the way Derek's sisters would volley shorthand with their husbands as they sorted out which parent would handle which task for each child.

… that's what they are, or what they'll be, anyway.

Parents.

For a moment she just breathes, reminding herself of that fact.

It's not like they don't talk.

They talk.

They talk about her pregnancy.

"The early anatomy scan is a week from today," she reminds him, then feels a little embarrassed. Is she being presumptuous? "I mean, if you want to come with me," she says.

"I want to come with you," he says at the same time, so that they talk over each and both have to pause and get their bearings before they speak again.

"So I'll come with you," Derek proposes finally.

"Of course. I was just – confirming that you wanted to."

"Of course I want to."

"A week from today," she repeats.

A pair of residents walk by, giving them a curious look, maybe wondering why the two Shepherds get paid so much to stand on a catwalk and repeat the same meaningless phrases at each other.

He nods, then glances at his blackberry. His eyes look tired, but she can't think about that too closely. "Let me know," he says, looking up at her, and she cuts in before he can finish.

"I will."

..

… _if you need anything._

He stands on the catwalk for a moment after she walks away, watching her. It might be his imagination or her gait is a bit different as her pregnancy reaches the halfway point – not that he'd ever tell her that, not unless he wanted to sing soprano.

She's been undeniably generous with him in the week they've been apart, letting him speak to the baby each night as he used to in the trailer and answering any question he's asked with respect to the pregnancy. It should soothe the fear in the back of his mind – that letting Addison have the distance she requested and he can admit they both needed – would mean missing his baby. It has soothed that fear, in large part, except that he can admit, in moments of solitude, that sharing the baby and sharing her pregnancy are two different things.

Truthfully … he wanted them both.

And for a while, he actually did.

Now, what does he have?

..

"How's Doc?"

He looks up at the interruption to see Meredith standing in front of him, holding out a chart. She indicates it with her chin when he doesn't respond, and he reaches out to take it, studying its contents for a moment.

"… Doc," she prompts him when he doesn't respond.

"Right." He flips the chart closed. "Doc. Doc is the same as he was the last time you asked."

Meredith nods. "Finn mentioned that recovery from the type of procedure he – "

" _Finn_ shouldn't be talking to you about Doc," Derek cuts in, irritated. Enough of his life is on display at this hospital. Can't anything be private?

Meredith blinks, but an unfortunately familiar voice speaks before she can.

"I hate to interrupt," Mark smirks as he strides up, quirking an eyebrow toward Derek.

"You aren't interrupting." Meredith takes a step back.

"He is interrupting," Derek corrects. "Go back to New York, Mark," he adds, without making eye contact. He's known Mark long enough to know there's no jab, verbal or otherwise, that bothers him more than not being acknowledged.

How is this life now, that the interaction with his estranged pregnant wife is the _least_ awkward part of his morning?

"But New York's no fun without my two favorite Shepherds." Mark throws a grin in Meredith's direction, annoyingly enough, and Derek is tossed unwillingly into a memory as old as his medical career: their first year of med school. _It's no fun without you,_ he'd complain, as Derek found himself spending more and more time with Addison and comparatively less time with Mark.

Derek stands stiffly, ignoring his former friend.

"Unbunch your panties, Shepherd," Mark says casually, "I'm only staying for one procedure. Remember?"

"I'm trying to forget, actually."

But like so many things, from coast to coast … it's easier said than done.

..

Stay busy: that's the first rule.

So in the shadowy light of the Rustic or Whatever Inn, Addison sits cross-legged on the bed, leaving a generous gap for her growing bump, reading.

Out loud this time.

(It's just really quiet in the room, okay?)

" _By now, you've probably settled on a theme for the nursery_." She pauses, looking down at the open book in her lap, then rests a hand on her midsection.

She glances around the hotel room, which is – well, it's sort of thematic. The theme is …

Hotel room.

That, and rustic. (Or whatever.)

"You've probably already guessed this is the book Aunt Nancy sent," she confesses to the baby, still out loud. "I should have taken your dad up on his offer and swapped it for a more … realistic one. One of the others."

Which was the one they read from the last time, before everything crashed down around them? Was it _Modern Baby, Modern Mama?_

This one is … a little different.

Idly, she tries to imagine creating a themed nursery in her current space. _Well, Nance, we're planning to turn the hotel safe into a cozy bassinet, and the luggage rack will really make an excellent changing table …_

Nancy, of course, has no idea that her unborn nephew and his mother are living in a hotel – not that the trailer is exactly set up for a themed nursery, either.

For someone who's done with secrets – and she is – she's still keeping a few.

But just a few.

 **One.** _Her current location,_ aka the Rustic or Whatever Inn. She's kept everyone she knows on a need to know basis, and no one – with the exception of Derek and Savvy – needs to know, as far as she's concerned. Derek's sisters and his mother, too, have been in touch since finding out about the pregnancy, but no one has asked specifically where she lives, so it doesn't count as a lie.

 **Two.** _Her current pregnancy,_ but at this point, only from her family. Which isn't a lie. It's – an omission, part self-protection and part total exhaustion. At this rate, she's not sure what would bring more of Bizzy's disapproval: her pregnancy (untimely), her estrangement from Derek (unseemly), her current living situation (tacky), or the one she left behind (trailer – enough said).

 **Three.** _Her first pregnancy._ The one that feels like a skipped heartbeat, a dull ache, the one Mark threw into relief with his unexpected visit. She's not keeping it from Derek, not anymore, and Savvy knows. But she's in no rush for anyone else to find out. Even Nancy, sympathetic Nancy, who blatantly sided with her over Derek even when he walked in on her with Mark. Nancy's been loyal to her for years, but this is … more than she can expect from a sister-in-law. No, Nancy doesn't need to find out. But she's still keeping it from Melissa, from the obstetrician who's started to feel like something more – who showed up at the hospital in running shoes to coax her to rest after her panic-driven collapse, who has supported her through every step of this surprise pregnancy. She's still keeping that secret … but she knows she shouldn't be.

 **Four.** _Her loneliness._ This one stings a bit. She told him once, months before she learned she was pregnant: _I'm lonely, Derek,_ and he didn't mock her for it – not out loud, anyway, but she can recall with painful precision exactly how his face looked, more smug than sympathetic. _Too bad_ , his expression seemed to say, _but I'm not._ That Derek, the one who ignored her? She'd never have to work to keep her loneliness a secret from him. He was only too happy not to notice her. This Derek, the father of their breakfast-loving baby, asks her how she is. He worries about her, follows up with her, keeps track of her.

 **Five.** _How much she misses him._ It's different from loneliness, which is generalized. Missing Derek is localized, a very specific ache in her chest that tightens when she thinks of him or catches a glimpse of him or hears his voice down the phone line or across a hospital hallway. She caused all this, she ruined the good thing they had going, and

 **Six.** _Her feelings about Seattle._ This one needs to stay under lock and key. She'll never celebrate the overly temperate weather, the constant humidity, or the inconvenient time zone, but Seattle stopped being just The Place Derek Ran To Get Away From Addison after the first stick turned blue. It's still that place, of course, and it's still overly temperate and humid and three hours behind civilization – but it's also The Place Their Baby Was Conceived. And yes, she blushes a little at that, which she knows is rich considering her personal history. Her future feels uncertain in ways far beyond the geographic, but she knows for sure that whatever happens, she'll never be able to view Seattle in the same way again.

 _You changed everything, baby._

She's been circling her hand on her bump, in an almost unconscious rhythm, and then she pauses.

Was that –

No.

Shrugging a little, she picks up the book again. " … _keep in mind, when selecting a decorator, you should make sure to find one who understands the importance of_ \- " She flips a few pages again and reads aloud at the next spot. " _… schedule the next laser hair removal appointment for a few days after – "_ hastily, she turns another few pages. " _It's normal to fear a Cesarean section, but try to stay calm and remember that your physician has your best interests in mind."_

Hmm. That sounds more palatable.

She continues.

" _Remember that Cesarean babies have beautifully shaped heads, which means less worry about finding a photographer equipped to hide unsightly – "_

"You know what?" She closes the book firmly. "We're going to read something else, baby. Something nicer. Something – more appropriate for children."

She looks around the room. There's that article on preconception care guidelines she'd meant to read the other night. Babies like medical journals, right?

" … maybe we'll just chat instead." She closes her eyes, resting both hands on her bump as she addresses the baby directly. She's been doing that since the beginning, but never more so than now, when she worries the baby will pick up on the silence of his parents' separation.

"So … we still live in a hotel. I guess you noticed that. Which means that it's, um, it's just the two of us, but it's better that way. For now, I mean. And, you know, it's a decent hotel. I mean, your grandmother Bizzy wouldn't think so, and your other grandmother would think it's disgustingly extravagant, so, there you go. We're in the happy medium."

The word _happy_ makes her swallow hard.

Before she can analyze that further, the phone rings. Right on schedule.

Normal, even.

"This is the New York Public Library," she answers, "how may I direct your call?"

" … you find yourself very amusing, don't you?"

"Pretty much."

There's a pause where she knows Derek is purposefully not smiling. "Is everything – "

"Everything's fine, Derek."

"Good."

"How's Doc?" she asks.

"He's fine. He's the same," Derek concedes, "but he enjoyed his dinner."

"Trout?"

"Chopped steak," Derek says with dignity.

"Good." She fingers the edge of the comforter. "You, uh, you want to talk to the baby?"

"I do."

"Okay. Hang on."

She lowers the phone until it's resting on her bump. And then she closes her eyes. With the distance and the muffling effect of her body, she can't make out what he's saying. She's never been able to. She could, of course, pick up the phone herself and listen. Derek has no way of knowing where she's placed the received. All he can do is trust her. And yet – while this might sound rich coming from someone with her history – she can't fathom not being honest about giving him this time to speak with his unborn son.

She's in a sort of reverie when she hears her name being called.

"I'm here." She pulls the phone to her ear.

They go back and forth on the logistics of the upcoming appointment and for a moment it's so like the _olden days_ of calls from primitive phones in bare bones dorms that she finds one hand starting to curl around a nonexistent phone cord.

Just a normal night, for the two – well, the three – of them.

All that's left now is to say goodbye.

..

 _Of course I want to come with you._

His words about the upcoming ultrasound still echo in her mind the next morning. She's been retracing them with the fervor she applied to them in medical school: _he said I take good notes. What does that mean?_

What does it mean?

He loves their baby.

She has no doubt of this. She has questioned so much from the moment she froze under the semi-tender ministrations of student nurse Kylie and realized she was pregnant – but she's never questioned that Derek would be a good father, or his attachment to his unborn son.

She's questioned everything else, and answered some of them, too: the truth is out, and here she is, alone.

Alone, a week away from the early anatomy scan that the receptionist who called to schedule reminded her cheerful was the norm for "all geriatric pregnancies."

In the meantime, she has a different appointment with Melissa to keep, right now.

Her own appointment.

She finds herself as nervous as she was that first day, for almost exactly the opposite reason: then, she was afraid of lying to her obstetrician and now … she's afraid of telling her the truth.

 _I can do this._ She pushes her hair behind her ears. _Mothers move cars off their babies. This isn't even a – tricycle. Or a Judy Dream Camper._

In the now familiar padded seat in front of Melissa's now familiar desk, she takes a deep breath.

"I … terminated a pregnancy."

Melissa, to her credit, her face a little blurry, just nods.

"About eight months ago," Addison continues.

And there it is.

She doesn't mention it wasn't Derek's.

She doesn't mention Derek didn't know.

But … it's out.

"It's, uh, it was a complicated situation," she says instead. She sips from the cup of water the receptionist gave her to stop her lips from trembling. "I didn't think I'd end up pregnant again so quickly."

 _Or ever._

Melissa nods again.

"Don't you – aren't you going to say anything?" Addison asks finally, curiously.

Her obstetrician leans back in her chair, crossing her legs. "Thank you for telling me," she says.

"That's all?"

"We're both OB-GYNs," Melissa says.

Addison nods.

"Do you provide?" she asks.

Slowly, Addison nods again.

"So do I." Melissa leans forward again now, straightens the folders on her desk. "Do you have any other concerns, Addison?"

Other concerns?

She's basically a giant walking _other concern._

"No, not really."

They regard each other for a moment.

"How are things with Derek?"

Addison freezes. How did –

Of course. She asks all her patients this.

"Pregnancy can be hard on a marriage," Melissa says.

 _Yeah, so can adultery._

She doesn't speak, afraid her lips are going to tremble.

"My door is always open," her doctor continues. "Except when I'm mid-pelvic."

Addison smiles in spite of herself.

"And I'll see you back here in … just about a week for your early anatomy scan."

"A week," Addison repeats. It sounds, in the moment, like forever. Even as another small weight is gone from the heaviness she's been carrying in her chest.

A week until she and Derek will be back in this building, getting the clearest glimpse they've had yet of the life they created together.

She's been present for many an anatomy scan throughout her career, but she's never been on this end of it. Nearly halfway through her pregnancy, nearly halfway through her unborn child's development. Miles from the little curl of tissue she saw on the first scan with its flickering proto heartbeat.

Her own heart flickers now.

A week – it might as well be forever.

"It will go by quickly," Melissa says, smiling at her expression.

And to her surprise … it actually does.

* * *

... to be continued. And I do mean that; finally getting this chapter finished resulted in most of the next chapter crafted as well. Prepare for another mini time jump, as the last line of this chapter suggests. It's time to move forward with the pregnancy and keep figuring out this new normal. If anyone can, Addek can, even if they drive us all crazy while they do it. Thank you, as always, for reading, and I hope you'll review and let me know what you think. Happy QPQ Sunday, with three minutes to spare on the east coast.


	24. Don't Judge a Book By Its Cover

**A/N:** Happy QPQ Sunday! I'm back and I'm even on time. (Maybe even early enough in the day for **loveandlearn** , I hope!) Thank you for all your feedback on the last chapter. It was a really nice welcome back. The last chapter was an introspective one, but life is coming down the pike a little faster for our erstwhile couple and their breakfast-loving baby now and I am excited to share it with you. I hope you'll enjoy this chapter.

Happy reading!

* * *

 _ **Don't Judge a Book By Its Cover**_

 _Gestational Age: nineteen weeks, two days_ _  
_ _Baby is the Size of a: mango  
Mangoes: come in all sizes  
Fruit Tracking, Therefore: is ridiculous, but baby's mother isn't stopping any time soon_ _  
_ _Baby's Parents: are still living apart  
Baby's Mother: is still living in a hotel  
Hotel Living: is less than baby deserves, but has its perks  
Weirdness Factor: present, but dwindling  
Fear Factor: tracking inversely to weirdness  
Pregnancy Books: are going to drive baby's mother insane_

..

Addison has been struck many times in her life by how quickly the new and strange can become habitual.

Her first days brushing her teeth after her braces came off, skittering over unfamiliar smooth surfaces: shocking, alien, and then – perfectly normal.

Her first days behind the wheel of a car, struggling to control its direction – and it was Archie's convertible, and he would not have been pleased if she'd crashed it: first it felt like the scariest of playacting, and then – it became perfectly normal.

Her first days living with Derek – not staying over, not bunking up on a holiday – but _living_ living with his shaving kit permanently in the same bathroom where she hung her delicates, his grainy cereal sharing a cupboard with the diet soda he hadn't yet talked her out of – it was strange. She found herself having to stifle laughter as they passed each other in the small kitchen or she rolled over in bed to turn out the light and found his hand already on it. And then, just like that – it was normal.

So normal that living without him became what seemed unfathomable.

But somehow, now, she's doing it. She's living without him.

Again.

She was certain, when she moved out of the trailer, that this is what they needed. To be apart.

But that doesn't mean it feels good, and it doesn't.

It's painful.

It _hurts._

But in spite of that, it's slowly becoming habit.

It has to. Her husband is the neurosurgeon but she's the expert in this marriage at the tricks the human brain has to play to survive.

The key is patterns.

The key is routine.

Sentences that start with _every night_.

And so every night, she's made it habit to read to the baby from one of the many pregnancy books she's amassed.

She reads, she drinks tea, and they wait for their nightly call.

Just like that: habit.

And habits pass the time, just as Melissa predicted, until her anatomy scan is the next day.

..

The night before the scan, Addison sits propped against the padded headboard of her bed, reading glasses balanced on _the_ bridge of her nose, hardback book open on her lap. She pauses to sip from the cup of now lukewarm tea on the nightstand before she returns to her reading.

( _Chapter Four: Preparing in the Second Trimester_ )

She's going to give the book a chance.

 _A pregnant mother requires support_ , she reads. _You don't want to trouble Daddy too much –_ she wrinkles her nose; the term that seems so sweet when talking to her unborn child seems less so here – _since he's busy working hard to support you and baby._

She grimaces, but forces herself to keep reading. It's okay. No one book can be completely relevant to her life.

 _Obviously you've already started making and freezing soups and stews so you won't have to worry about cooking when the baby gets here._

Soups and … stews? She searches her mind to try to remember if she's ever made a soup. Does pouring takeout wonton into a bowl count? She's certainly never made a stew, and isn't quite sure what defines _stew_ to begin with. The closest she's come is a muttered accusation from her husband that she should stop stewing, but she's fairly certain he wasn't referring to the bulk preparation of postnatal meals.

 _You've recruited help for those first few weeks at home: your mother –_

She clears her throat.

… _or perhaps your mother in law._

Is that why Carolyn chose this one? Appreciative, in a way, Addison has been doing her best to make it through the book – "The Traditional First Time Mother," complete with inked inscription on the title page, _"Addie, dear, I think this is meant for younger women, but since this is your first baby, I hope you still find it useful and consider taking some of the advice. Love, Mom."_

But to say the book doesn't quite _get her_ is an understatement. She shakes her head a little to clear it. Maybe it will get better.

 _It's fine to ask Daddy for help_

She grimaces again.

… _perhaps changing a diaper or two, or watching the baby while you take a bath, but don't make a habit out of it._

"What is _Daddy_ supposed to do," she asks the empty room, scathingly, "go fishing while I stay at home cooking the baby and watching the stew?"

She glances down at her bump. _That's right, kiddo. Your mother talks to herself. She's not nuts, though. Not in the traditional sense, anyway._

The phone rings, interrupting her thoughts while images of Derek relaxing on his rowboat while she bounces a screaming baby dance through her head.

"Now what do you want?" she asks irritably without waiting to find out who it is.

(It's Derek. Of course it's Derek.)

"Excuse me." Her husband sounds confused and slightly hurt. "Have I done something to offend you?"

 _More like what you haven't done, in your mother's incredibly dated view of things._

"No," she admits.

"You're reading the book again." Derek sounds half amused now. She can just picture him shaking his head. "Addison. Don't read the book if you don't want to."

"I do want to."

And it's not like the other choices in her collection are so great, either. Nancy's? _Pretty While Pregnant: Why Growing a Baby Doesn't Have to Mean Groaning at Your Reflection_ didn't exactly seem much better than Carolyn's, nor did _French Women Don't Get Stretch Marks._ And it's not like Kathleen's, _Inherited Neuroses: Nurturing the Traumatized Fetus_ , is that much better.

(Privately, she thinks she might flip through, just to make sure she doesn't further traumatize her unborn baby, but she's not going to tell Kathleen that.)

"You want the books back you left here? We can trade," Derek offers, and it's kind of him, except the last thing she wants is for her husband to read a guidebook to how few diapers he's expected to change.

"No, it's fine." She closes the book – with its picture of a beaming woman in what can best be described as a housecoat, lampshade shaped, which based on its proportions could be concealing anything from a pregnancy to an old-fashioned tube television to Apollo 16.

She knows why he's calling, as he does each night – to say goodnight to the baby – and she facilitates the call with what's become muscle memory, holding the phone against her bump.

It's normal.

It's habit.

It's okay.

There's no reason for it to make her emotional, and she swallows hard, forcing her breathing to stay even.

When she retrieves the receiver, prompted by his calling her name, he's silent on the other end of the phone.

"Derek?" she asks finally.

"I don't have to call," he says quietly. "If it bothers you. Not every night."

"It doesn't bother me." She rests a hand on her bump. Didn't she promise him she'd never keep him away from his baby? And it doesn't bother her. If anything, it – but that's not important now. "You can call. You should call. It doesn't bother me."

"Okay."

For a moment neither of them speaks.

"I'll … see you at work," he says, and that's that.

..

"You don't have to look at me like that," Derek scolds Doc, gently scratching the soft fur around his muzzle. "It's not my fault she's not here."

Doc gazes at him mournfully, head slightly cocked, from his position on the bed. He's been diplomatically avoiding sleeping in his mistress's spot, and the one time Derek tried sleeping there it felt wrong even before Doc barked at him. As a result, he's sleeping pressed against the wall on the far less desirable side of the bed while Doc stretches out in what used to be the _between_ spot. Which leaves a perfectly preserved empty patch of bed where Addison used to sleep.

"You know, you could move over a little." He continues stroking the dog, who pants appreciatively but doesn't move at all. "You still miss her, huh?"

Doc whines softly.

"Maybe next time you'll talk to her on the phone." He smiles at the dog. Somehow, it seems like appropriate symmetry: he speaks to their unborn human child, Addison speaks to their canine one. He's certain she'd agree. In some ways he's noticed and some he hasn't wanted to think too closely about, they've been more accommodating of each other, even kinder, during this separation than they have in a long time.

More – what's the word his sister Kathleen would favor? _Intentional ._

He reminds himself, firmly, never to mention that to her.

This is good. Isn't it? That they can be civil, friendly adults, even if they're separated right now. That they can co-exist at work and keep up with her pregnancy, without letting it get messy. Civil. Mature. Task-oriented.

He stretches slightly, trying to find some flexion in the narrow part of the bed he's now permitted for himself.

He could move Doc. He could insist. This is their life now; there's no reason to keep that space empty.

… maybe tomorrow.

..

She's still reading the book.

There's never been a test she hasn't aced, and reading is part of that. Isn't it? So Carolyn's book isn't exactly what she would have chosen, but it can't be all chaff and no wheat … maybe.

She returns to the chapter, hoping she's past the part about _not making yourself a nuisance to the other women in your knitting circle,_ one hand idly tracing her bump as she reads.

 _Along with your other lists –_ Addison looks up from the book, amused and relieved – they finally got one thing right. … _you should be keeping track of who is in your support system. Who can you count on, if baby comes in the middle of the night, or if she has a spot of colic?_

Oh.

A list of her … support people. Who can she count on?

She looks around the hotel room, and decides to count outward, tracking proximity.

 **One**. _Vida._ Her favorite housekeeper, bar none, at the Rustic or Whatever Inn. Vida replaced her tissues three times in one day when she had that crying jag, and never fails to remove the plastic from her dry cleaning as soon as it arrives. (And she brought Addison that bottle of wine she requested the second night – no to drink, just to hold – and never asked questions about it despite her visible pregnancy.) Plus, she happens to know that Vida has four children of her own. Naturally, this sent her into paroxysms of unhelpful upper class guilty, which she's been assuaging with oversized tips. The point is: Vida would be helpful if the baby came in the middle of the night, as long as she was on shift. She knows where all the good towels are, and she has access to boiling water. Surely that's what Carolyn's book would consider support?

 **Two**. _The Concierge._ Here at the Rustic or Whatever Inn, _concierge_ is too fancy-French. Not faux-woodsy enough. The man in the lobby is called something else – a lumberjack? A tourist prop? He wears flannel shirts that look a little too ironed, but he knows where to find everything she can't find in Seattle. He's the one who provided her with the printed ferry schedule and menus for all the takeout she could need. He barely blinked when she told him she'd need to set up regular dry cleaning service. He even stopped saying, _have a great day, now!_ as she walked through the lobby, apparently good enough at customer service to realize how she hated it. Based on that, he seems discreet enough to procure her some mesh underwear or rock a colicky baby while pretending not to see a pair of leaky breasts. Right? (Nothing depressing about that image. Not at all.)

 **Three.** _Derek._ Yeah, proximity takes her right from the inn to her husband. She can't quite help that. Things are strange between the two of them. They're different, they're sometimes painful, but there's a certain grace to them too. So she kicked herself out of his trailer, fine. So the last time they argued, she basically passed out, fine. So they've been existing in an oddly warm détente, fine. So she has no idea what their future holds other than the perfect baby they created together … fine. (Well. Fine _ish_ , anyway.) But even though she and her husband are living separately, she can say for the first time in a long time that she knows she could pick up the phone and reach him whenever needed. That he understands her inclination to pore obsessively over ultrasound pictures and fetal development charts and the way a visit to Melissa is equal parts exciting and terrifying. She can't live with him right now but she also can't imagine anyone else gazing up at the ultrasound with her or standing by her side in labor. Derek has earned his spot on the list.

 **Four.** _Meredith._ Okay, look, her husband's ex girlfriend isn't going to be her labor coach or anything, but considering Meredith's role in the beginning of her pregnancy, and her surprising ability to catch a fainting Addison (is it just a coincidence, or does it seem like a lot of her these support stories involve passing out? Maybe she should look into that), it seems safe to say Meredith might be willing to catch a baby too, if needed. Not that it will be – but a list is a list.

 **Five.** _Savvy._ Low on the list due only to bicoastal distance. She's a phone call away, always has been, however far apart they may be living now. Savvy who encouraged her to be honest with Derek and then helped her pick up the pieces just as surely as she did the first time Addison's terrible judgment tore into their marriage. She can count on Savvy for anything, would trust her best friend with her life. (But Savvy faints at the sight of blood, so – it's probably just as well the role of labor coach is taken.)

 **Six.** _Melissa._ Oops, Melissa is closer in proximity, but she might as well get a cameo on the list. Addison is well aware how important it is to be able to trust your obstetrician. (As for whether Melissa can trust her – well, that's a different story.) But Melissa knows, now. She sat across from her and listened to her tell the truth and marked _gravida 2_ in her head and still treated her exactly the same. Melissa can be relied on.

 **Seven.** _Nancy._ Her sister-in-law is an OB as well as a Shepherd, which means she knows fetal development _and_ she knows what it's like to both (1) live with Derek and (2) be pregnant around Carolyn. Nancy loses some points for the size of her hips and the size of her vanity (in opposite respects), but she'd be there if needed, Addison is sure of it. (Just as sure as she is that she'd never call her, because her presence would drive Derek insane.)

 **Eight.** _Herself._ Okay, she'd never admit this out loud, and it's way too new-agey on the one hand and shrinky Kathleen Shepherd on the other, but she's spent so long cowering from her own bad judgment and hating her terrible choices that it's nice to see, even if it's just the most basic of ways, that she can count on herself. After all, she's living alone now. (And yes, she has Vida and the lumberjack concierge at the inn, Derek and all the others at work, and Savvy and Nancy on the phone. But here in this room, at night, it's just her … and the baby.) She has no choice, really, but to count on herself, and she may need a few extra boxes of tissues once in a while, but she's here. She's still here.

She closes the book.

 _How's that for a support system?_

..

"I wish you wouldn't call me from the car," Savvy says in lieu of _good morning._

"How did you – " she stops talking. Savvy just _knows_ things and it's not a lawyer thing, either. She's been like this since freshman year. "I have a hands free … whatever," she says instead, lamely.

"You're still distracted," Savvy says primly. "Driving takes focus."

"Driving in Manhattan takes focus, Sav. There are no yellow cabs here."

Savvy seems to accept this. "How are you doing, Addie .. really?" she asks.

"Really? I'm … " she doesn't have to fake it, not with Savvy. "I miss him," she admits.

"Oh, honey." Savvy sighs into the phone. "I guess I won't waste my breath saying, _tell him._ "

"He needs space."

"I know that. And so do you."

She makes a dismissive face that Savvy seems able to see, somehow.

"Don't do that, Addie, you _do_ need space too. This – thing – it isn't something you did to Derek."

"Isn't it?" She thinks of the way her husband's face changed when Mark barged into the hospital. His scornful, angry tone in the on-call room. Her lying did that. Her secrets did that. How can Savvy say _she_ didn't do it?

"You both made mistakes," Savvy says softly. "You both hurt each other. You both need space. And now you're both getting space."

"You make it sounds so – logical."

"That's how I got the corner office." Savvy sounds a little sad, though. "Ad?"

"Hm?"

"Be patient, okay? With him, and with yourself … and with traffic. Stop running yellow lights."

Addison's eyes widen behind their dark glasses, feeling a little guilty. "Can you actually see me?" she asks, not sure whether she's fascinated or horrified.

"No." Savvy laughs. "But I did just get you to admit you ran a yellow. Do me a favor, Addie, and please never get deposed without me."

"… I'll do my best."

The problem, as she weaves into her parking space a few minutes later, is this: what if her _best_ still isn't good enough?

..

Another morning.

The same catwalk.

The same husband.

The same conversation.

But does it have to be?

"Hi," Derek says.

 _Mix it up. Tell him you miss him. Ask him how he can stand there and look at you like you're just another attending saying good morning. Kiss him. Do something. Do anything!_

"… Hi," she says.

 _Damn it._

"How's the hotel?"

"Better now that they took my suggestion about upgrading the linens." She keeps her tone light.

He looks, for a split second, like he's fighting a smile.

"How did you sleep?"

"… better now that they took my suggestion about upgrading the linens," she repeats.

He looks only faintly amused now.

"Addison – "

"I slept," she says without inflection. "I'm fine. He's fine. And no, he hasn't moved."

Two Truths and a Lie, Shepherd style. _Honey, can you figure out which one was the lie?_

He studies her face for a moment. When he speaks again, it's abrupt. "You won't forget – "

" – to tell you when he moves. No, of course not," she says patiently.

He looks like he's going to say something else, then seems to think better of it.

"How's Doc?" she asks.

"Still hanging in there."

"I miss him," she blurts before she can stop herself, feeling heat in her cheeks.

"Yeah." Derek is looking away now. "He, uh, he misses you too."

"Really?" she asks, a little heartened.

"No, Addison, he's a dog."

She's hurt for a split second before she sees he looks amused, and then she can't help smiling back. "Derek –"

He turns back.

"I don't want him to think I just left, for no reason."

"Doc eats shoes, Addison. Logic isn't one of his strong suits."

She shakes her head, unconvinced. "Can you just tell him? Tell Doc, I mean. That I miss him. Please," she adds, embarrassed to hear a slight tremor in her voice.

Derek pauses for a moment, looking at her face. "I'm pretty sure Doc already knows," he says quietly.

Addison blinks, then clears her throat. "Melissa's office, uh, her office called. Just to confirm the appointment," she adds quickly, before he can worry.

"You could open with that next time, Addie."

He doesn't actually sound annoyed.

"But while we're talking about it," she continues tentatively and sees him tense up again.

"Addison." He tilts his head.

"I told her," she blurts before she can overthink it.

"You told her – "

"Melissa. I told Melissa."

"Ah." He doesn't seem to need to ask what, exactly, she told her.

He seems to be digesting the information. "I was wondering if you'd already – "

"No," She cuts him off, then pauses. "But, uh, now I did."

"All right." He studies her face for a moment. "What?" he asks finally, when she still looks to be on the verge of more speech.

"Nothing." She fiddles with the strap of her watch. "I wanted to be done. Keeping secrets. I'm not keeping secrets anymore."

"I'm glad to hear it."

He doesn't say, _Finally._ He doesn't scoff, _I've heard that before._ He doesn't ask, _do you really think I trust you?_

..

So she's done keeping secrets. She's not doing it anymore.

Derek swallows hard; he noticed the look in her eyes when she said those words, _I'm not keeping secrets anymore_ , like she was waiting for him to snap at her.

He's not proud of that.

And then he read the look in her eyes at his response: surprised relief that he didn't.

He's not proud of that either.

 _When did treating each other kindly stop being the norm?_

There was a time when the warm rhythms of their relationship were habit, grounded so deeply that he could greet her post surgery with a kiss without losing the stride of a sentence he was speaking to someone else.

They gave each other the benefit of the doubt.

They supported each other.

And if he's honest with himself – that part started breaking down before Mark.

If Addison can stop keeping secrets … maybe he can be honest with himself.

 _What happened to us?_

The easy answer, of course, is that Mark happened to them.

He knows she's sorry, he knows how much she regrets it, and he actually started to believe they could fully move past it when _it_ showed up to slap them in the face.

"Morning, Derek. Addison."

… and now, _it_ is strolling up to them with an insolently friendly look on his face.

He feels his body tensing. "You're still here?"

"Post-op." Mark frowns. "I don't like to leave loose ends, Derek, you know that. Only the best for my patients."

"Aren't they lucky," he mutters.

Addison glances at him, looking uncomfortable, and he feels a hot seed of anger within him. Why is it that Mark can still swoop in and sow dissent between them?

 _I haven't seen you all day._

 _I didn't want to see you today._

"Go see your patient, then," he suggests, forcing his tone to stay calm, "we don't need any post-op care."

Mark opens his mouth to respond when he appears distracted by the gaggle of doctors passing. One of them, the tall orthopedic surgery resident who's far more dressed down than his last interaction with her at prom, waves to Addison.

"Who's that?" Mark asks with interest.

"A resident. And she's married," Addison informs him.

"That's never stopped him before." Derek grimaces.

"Married, huh?" Mark rubs his chin thoughtfully. "How does the husband treat her?"

"I'm leaving," Addison says quickly, leaning in to kiss Derek and then pausing, cheeks flushed, when she realizes what she's done.

Mark has the nerve to look amused as he watches her walk away.

"What's so funny?" Derek asks in spite of himself, annoyed.

"Addison's living in a hotel, huh?"

Derek shakes his head, irritated. He doesn't know or care why Mark is privy to that information, but he's no stranger to the hospital rumor mill either. "I'm not talking to you about Addison."

"Not talking to me about Addison, not talking to me about Meredith, not talking to me about the married resident with the – "

"Let me make this easier," Derek cuts him off before he has to hear whatever crude description Mark was planning. "I'm not talking to you, at all."

"Hey!"

Derek turns around. "What?"

Mark is staring at him. "Just tell me this … what was the point?"

"Excuse me?"

Both men regard each other silently for one long moment.

"Forget it," Mark says finally. "You have a really thick head, you know that?"

Coming from Mark Sloan, any insult is a compliment, and he wastes no more time talking to his former best friend.

..

"I just don't want to be late for the scan," Derek says, for the third time, catching Addison glaring at him when he checks his watch. He glances at the closed door of Richard's office.

"We're not going to be late." Addison pushes her hair behind her ears with one hand, using her free hand to sip from the paper cup of tea he brought her. "You want to miss this meeting, really, Derek? And have Preston use it against us, and take chief, and – "

"There are more important things than chief," he says mildly.

"I know that." She scowls at him.

"Doctors," Preston says smoothly, striding up. "You're early."

"So are you," Addison points out.

Derek nods. "You know what they say about early birds."

" … they get the worm, while the fashionably late bird gets the promotion?"

All three of them turn at the unexpected interruption.

 _Oh, for crying out loud._

"You're here. You're here?" Derek looks from Mark to Addison, who lifts both hands into the air.

"Don't look at me," she says nervously. "I thought he was going back to Manhattan after post-op. He said he was going back to Manhattan."

"It's true." Mark lifts an eyebrow. "I _was_ going back to Manhattan."

"Was," Derek repeats weakly.

He has a very bad feeling about this.

And what's this about the _fashionably late bird_ and the _promotion_ , anyway?

"What made you – "

"Gentlemen." Richard booms in greeting as he approaches, then corrects himself. "Addison," he adds, sounding slightly embarrassed. " … Doctors," he says finally.

Addison looks slightly mollified at this; Derek, meanwhile, is still trying to figure out if Mark's unexpected presence is a bad dream.

"What?" Mark looks from one Shepherd to the other. "Something on my shirt?" he asks, smoothing out the lapels of his white coat, right above the ID badge that –

"You hired him?" Derek asks, incredulous.

"It's temporary," Richard says, "based on his successful procedure. On a trial basis." He seems to notice Derek and Addison's expressions. "We're short in Plastics. You know this."

 _I know a lot of things._

Burke clears his throat. "Filling departmental needs is within your discretion, of course, but this meeting is not a full departmental meeting."

"No, it's not." Richard's tone is even, but he looks uncomfortable. They're still grouped in the hallway outside his office; so much for a private meeting. He can glance over his shoulder from the catwalk and hospital bustling below.

Why would Richard hire Mark, even on a temporary basis?

Why, other than –

" … he's in the running for chief," Derek says, once again stunned and once again finding himself repeating an unwelcome revelation. "He's in the running for chief?"

"Mark Sloan, Chief of Surgery?" Addison looks a little green, and he can't blame her. He's pretty nauseated himself.

"You can't be serious." Even unflappable Burke looks – well – flapped.

"His credentials are outstanding," Richard says.

"His credentials. His – are you serious?" Derek stares at his boss. "Chief. It was one thing to have Preston – and Addison – but – "

Richards face is impassive, and Derek turns to Mark.

"You don't even live in Seattle!"

"I could live in Seattle."

"You could …." His voice trails off. "He could live in Seattle," he repeats to the group at large.

Mark frowns. "What's the matter, Derek? You never had a problem with a little healthy competition."

"Healthy competition. Is that what you think this is?" Derek turns to Richard, who has the good grace to look slightly embarrassed. "You kept him here for the race," he realizes. "And you didn't tell us."

The chief doesn't respond.

Of all the …

He sees Richard's stern face, months ago. _The workings of this hospital don't include your personal life!_

Derek turns on Mark next. "Are you enjoying yourself?" he asks coldly.

Based on his smirk … probably.

"Hey, I can't base all my career decisions on whether they make you happy." Mark sounds almost hurt. "And anyway, I didn't know Addison was up for chief. What with her being pregnant and all."

He's fairly sure he can see smoke rising out of Addison's hair.

"Dr. Sloan," Preston says in his silky voice, "perhaps things are different on the … opposite coast … but here at Seattle Grace, we have no room for sexism. We are a _modern_ hospital."

Derek looks at him, impressed, and Preston – did he just _wink_?

Enemy of my enemy, indeed.

(Enemy of my former best friend, whatever you want to call it, the sentiment is the same.)

"Doctors, I trust each of you will handle this competition with professionalism," Richard booms.

Behind his back, Mark makes a face at Derek, who ignores him.

"This is _hospital_ business," Richard continues, frowning. "It's not personal."

"It's personal to us," Addison says tightly, surprising him a little.

 _Us._

"Then you'd better start working on hiding it a little better," Richard says, giving her a stern look. "Your personal lives have no place in this hospital."

Derek can't help but think it's a bit late for that, as his gaze skims over the obvious swell of Addison's pregnancy – he can't help the little smile that flickers every time he notices it – the pregnancy she inadvertently announced to the entire hospital at the prom. The pregnancy that only exists because Richard decided to bring Addison to Seattle in the first place. Richard himself, whose known them since their intern days.

Their personal lives have no place in the hospital?

They've spent their entire marriage in one hospital or another.

Their professional _is_ personal, and Richard knows it.

"Do I make myself clear?" Richard says now, his gaze focused on Addison, whose cheeks are flushed. With Preston to one side, his ever polite expression barely masking his irritation at this new development, and Mark on the other smirking at the melée, targeting Addison feels unfair.

 _She's not your intern anymore, Richard._

"Crystal clear … Chief," Derek says loudly before Addison can respond.

"All right, then." Richard removes his glasses to polish them before he speaks again. "Good. Now, I called you here for this meeting – "

Is that what this is?

A meeting?

Not a public backstabbing in the hallway overlooking the hospital they're all pitted against each other to run?

" – because I wanted to make sure all four of you are still interested in the position."

"Still?" Derek feels his eyes widen, looking from Mark to Richard; despite his promises to be professional he can't help himself. "He's been in Seattle for five minutes."

"Five _impressive_ minutes," Mark grins.

Addison rolls her eyes, which Derek appreciates.

Somehow, they manage to keep it together until Richard walks away – closely followed by Mark.

Which produces mixed feelings – Derek's never sorry to see the back of Mark, except seeing him trailing the chief like a loyal collie doesn't exactly thrill him.

 _Enjoy it while it lasts, Chief. Mark Sloan won't be loyal forever. He doesn't have it in him._

"Sloan has placed himself in the running for chief," Preston summarizes slowly once the three of them are alone.

He looks from one Shepherd to the other. Derek's not sure what he sees looking at his own face, but Addison looks somewhere between grim and exhausted. She shakes her head slightly, one hand resting on her baby bump.

"Apparently." Derek can't help glaring at the spot where Mark was standing moments before.

"Along with you," Preston prompts.

"Of course."

"And you." He turns to Addison, who nods.

"Well." Preston takes a moment to straighten the already perfect lapels of his white coat; when he looks up again, there's a smile playing on his lips. "Then in light of today's developments, it seems some more … creative … strategizing may be in order."

..

Derek punches the code to his office door, wishing he could punch something else right about now.

He settles for recalling the feeling of the last time he punched him.

Last, and only.

He forces himself to calm down.

It's not like Mark is really going to stay.

He won't stay. He's just putting on a show.

He's Mark – he's all show.

All show, and not worth his energy, because Derek doesn't have time to worry about Mark right now.

Mark, the Chief's race, the public way his marital problems have leaked into his professional world, the passive-aggressive emails his mother continues to send asking when they plan to visit the east coast … they all recede until they're too small to amount to anything at all.

What matters is this, and only this:

They're on their way to the early anatomy scan.

And they're going to see the baby.

"I guess this is it." Addison glances at him across the console. She's fiddling with her necklace, one of the surest tells she's trying to tamp down her nerves, and he can't blame her.

"Yeah, I guess it is."

"Derek?"

He looks at her.

"Thank you for coming with me."

"He's my baby too," he reminds her quietly.

"I know that." She looks flustered, reaching for his arm and then pulling her hand back as if she's been burned. For his part, he has an instinctual palm resting on her back through the open door and entertains a fleeting hope she won't have noticed. There was a time he thought their reconciliation was awkward; then again, there was a time he thought a lot of things.

Right now, to his fading surprise, this new non-named phase, devoid of hostility and even more confusing for that fact … isn't feeling awkward at all.

..

She presses the elevator button, tense with anticipation.

 _Here we go._

She glances at Derek, who looks much the way she feels. She's this close to reaching for his hand: it looks warm, it twitches slightly by his side, she can imagine exactly how – but she reaches for the elevator button instead. Needlessly, she presses it again.

Twice.

They ride up to Melissa's floor side by silent in joint silence that's half Christmas morning and half scrub room.

 _I want good news. I want no news. I want to see you, baby._

She pauses outside the door to Melissa's practice. The heavy maple has become familiar, the silver nameplates with their etchings of a pregnant silhouette.

"Derek – wait."

He looks at her, concern creasing his features.

"I'm glad you're here," she says quietly. "That's all I meant, before."

His mouth twitches. "Yeah. I'm glad I'm here too."

What's that her latest pregnancy book said?

Oh, right: " _At this stage in your baby's development, time is starting to get very short – you should be feeling certain about the next steps._ "

The thing is, she's not.

In some ways, she's never been less certain.

Of anything.

And yet –

"Derek?" she says again.

He nods.

"Let's go see our baby," she says, and his face softens visibly at her words.

 _Our baby._

Of that one thing, she's certain.

As for the rest? Screw the books.

They have time for the rest.

..

..

 _Derek places the call with more confidence than he feels, heart still pounding._

" _Nancy?"_

" _Derek … are you sure you dialed the right number?" Nancy asks, her tone playful. "It's not Christmas or my birthday."_

" _Look, just – I'm a bad brother, I never call. Fine." He shifts the phone, swallowing hard. "You win, okay?"_

" _What's wrong?" Nancy sounds concerned, now. "Derek?"_

 _He draws a breath, with some effort, glancing over his shoulder to make sure he doesn't wake his wife – no, she's still sleeping, one bare arm curled next to her face, looking almost relaxed._

 _... if you didn't know what to look for._

 _He turns his attention back to his sister. "I need to talk to you," he says._

" _What's going on? Is it Addison?" she asks, more urgently. "Did something happen? Addie was going to call me after the anatomy scan, but I assumed she got tied up."_

 _Not for the first time, he wonders if all this might be easier if they didn't know quite so well just what to look for. In each other, and in other things too._

" _Derek … you're scaring me."_

" _No, it's all right." He gathers himself, draws a deep shaking breath. "It's not, uh – it's nothing, really, it's probably fine. It's fine. I just wanted to, uh, I wanted to ask you something."_

" _Derek! Would you just ask me already? Whatever it is, just ask me."_

 _He swallows hard._

 _He swallows his pride._

" … _how soon can you fly out here?"_

* * *

To be continued next QPQ Sunday. Don't throw things! We're ending for the first time on a preview of the next chapter - a little time jump - and all will be clear next Sunday. Please just remember that I've said everything will be okay, and it will! We know that - but we know more than the characters do; their reactions to it are what make it interesting.

Addison needs a knitting circle, according to Carolyn, and I need you guys (Carolyn would disapprove of that, I'm sure, in addition to my wardrobe). So please review and let me know what you think/how your weekend is going/how you feel about being back on track for QPQ Sundays. As always - thank you so much for reading!


	25. Probably Fine

**A/N: Thank you so much for the feedback on the last chapter! I'm so happy so many of you have kept the faith and kept reading. Happy QPQ Sunday, and I hope you enjoy this extra long chapter - you deserve it for sticking with this story AND for being (mostly ... sort of) patient with the semi-cliffhanger from last time. You saw a little preview last time, so now let's go back and figure out what the heck is going on, shall we?**

* * *

 _ **Probably Fine**_

 _Gestational Age: Nineteen weeks, three days  
Baby is the size of: a mango (still – but if you mix in some of the previous weeks' citrus, he could make a pretty tasty cocktail)  
People Who Know: the entire population of Seattle, now including baby's mother's OB  
People Who Still Don't Know: all Montgomeries other than baby (half Montgomery) and mother (too much Montgomery for her liking sometimes)  
Anatomy Scans Upcoming: two (she's old)  
Excitement Level at Seeing the Baby: red alert  
_..

"What is it?" Addison sits half up on her elbows, the paper covering the exam table rustling underneath her as she moves. She looks anxiously between Derek, the sonographer, and the screen. "What did you see?"

"It's okay," he says automatically, responding to her panic although his own heart is beating wildly; he knows that signature pause as well as his wife does.

 _Here we have the four chambers of the heart. All present. All look ... appropriately sized._

"Go back," Addison demands. "Move back to the ventricles. I want to see."

"I'm looking at the atria right now," the sonographer says patiently. "Once I count the chambers, I start from the – "

"I don't care where you start – just give me the damn wand!" And she snatches it from the sonographer's hand before he can stop her.

"Addie," he mutters, pro forma because he's as worried as she is. Addison, meanwhile, is trying to position the transducer with an uncharacteristically shaking hand; it's the only time he's ever seen her unsteady with an ultrasound, even when they were interns.

"You need to give me back the wand," the sonographer says. "Ma'am – Addison – "

She might as well not exist for all Addison takes note of her words. She's busy trying to get the image they're seeking.

Derek is vaguely aware, peripherally, of the sonographer picking up the phone, then trying one more time:

"Can you please give me back the – "

"Move," Addison snaps; Derek finds himself resting a hand on hers to steady it although he can tell from the sonographer's expression now that she thinks he's actually trying to help her get the device back.

" _Addison_. … Dr. Shepherd." The sonographer looks from one of them to the other and even in the face of his fear, Derek has a fleeting moment of not knowing whether she's addressing both of them or just addressing Addison two ways, and files it away for discussion later on how that whole sexism thing is going. "This is inappropriate. It's against policy. If you can just let me – "

"Stop talking." Addison's voice is fierce even as it shakes. "And stop blocking the screen!"

Derek gives the sonographer a weak smile. "I guess we can't reason with her," he says. "Sorry." And then he turns back to the screen and their son is back; Addison has recovered her skill somehow and he can see the flickering movement and then …

She whispers his name; he squeezes her shoulder with the hand that's not currently helping her with the ultrasound.

"There it is," she whispers. "Derek …"

"I see it." His attention is drawn, as it was before, to the two lower chambers of their son's heart. But the anomaly is secondary to the miraculous way it's pumping before his eyes.

 _His heart._

Their son's heart.

It's perfect.

"You see it?" she repeats, her tone growing frantic. "Derek – "

"I see it," he says again. "But it's small," Derek says carefully. "Very small."

"You would have known that if you'd let me finish the scan," the sonographer cuts in, tapping her foot; they both ignore her.

"But it's there." Addison's eyes are huge when she searches his face. Together, they study the anomaly. "None of the other kids have had VSDs, have they?" she asks.

He shakes his head; there's no call to ask her which kids she means. He spares less than a second for the warm rush of their son taking his rightful place as number fifteen of the Shepherd grandchildren.

"I don't understand." Her voice is shaking. "He was fine every other scan."

"It's very common," the sonographer says. "It's most likely nothing. I'm not actually supposed to discuss the results with you – "

"Then don't," Addison interrupts coolly. "I certainly wouldn't want you to speak out of turn. Not when it's against policy."

The door bursts open then. "I'm sorry," Melissa is muttering to the sonographer. "I had a patient with advanced – hello there, Shepherds!" She turns to them with a smile, eyes widening. "Addison – what are you doing with my machine?"

"I'm looking at _my_ baby."

Melissa's face is sympathetic, not angry, but when she holds out a hand it seems clear she won't accept a refusal. For a moment she and Addison lock eyes and Derek finds himself wondering what's going to happen next – is it a crime to take over an ultrasound machine? He does know, from his own intern days, just how expensive they are and that was fifteen years ago.

Addison's hand loosens on the wand. "There's something wrong with his heart," she says in a small voice. She sounds like a parent, not a doctor, and Melissa carefully detaches the transducer from her now relaxed grip.

"May I see?" she asks calmly.

Derek gets it, sort of – they're patients, not doctors, because now they have their hands free and he can hold both of Addison's in one of his and rest the other on the top of her head, trying to communicate reassurance.

"I wouldn't normally handle it this way," Melissa says, still very calm, "but yes, I do see a small hole right there – " she indicates – "between the two ventricles."

Addison's squeezing his hand so tightly he's fairly sure her rings are carving holes in his flesh, but he doesn't complain.

"Get dressed," she says, turning off the screen.

"Why – "

"Because I want to talk to you, and I want to do it while you're wearing clothes and not covered in gel. I've been there three times, remember?"

"But the exam – "

"I'll do the rest of it myself. After we talk."

Melissa's brisk efficiency is contagious; she gives them privacy and somehow he finds himself helping Addison wipe the gel off and sit up, then step down from the table.

She whispers his name, just once, and he takes her face between his hands. "It's okay," he says fiercely, as much for himself as for her. "We saw it ourselves, Addie. It's small."

"It's small," she repeats, her voice cracking a little.

"It's small."

Unspoken: _but it's there._

..

"It's called a ventricular septal defect, which I know you know," Melissa says once they've settled in her office. Just as she predicted, Addison seems more herself in her street clothes, though he can feel the vibration from her anxiously tapping crossed leg, "and we're going to watch it. I know it's unpleasant to hear anything other than _perfect_ during an anatomy scan. I get it. But there's no cause for alarm right now, and many fetal VSDs close on their own before birth. Which I also know you know. Now let me tell you something you don't know."

They both look at her.

"My older daughter had a VSD on her anatomy scan. She's fine now," Melissa adds. "It closed up before birth, and based on how loudly she screams when her brother takes her things, her lungs weren't affected either. But guess how I handed it when I saw it during the ultrasound?"

"Professionally," Addison guesses, only a touch of sarcasm in her tone.

"Nope." Melissa smiles a bit at the memory. "I didn't grab the wand, but I did curse at the sonographer. I cursed a lot. As in – every curse I knew."

"Was she – "

"He," Melissa corrects her. "He was Russian, and he let me call him every name in the book and then he taught me some new ones." She pauses, looking pensive. " _Eto piz dets!"_ she says, or something that sounds like it anyway.

"What does that mean?" Derek can't help asking.

She addresses her answer to Addison.

"Roughly translated, it means … I'm an OB and it's extra terrifying to see anything on my baby's ultrasound, even if I know professionally speaking that it's most likely to be nothing at all, and if anything is minor and easily corrected."

They all digest this.

"Look ... you're due for the second anatomy scan in two weeks," Melissa says. "If it hasn't closed up by then – and it may not; you're still not even twenty weeks – then we can talk more about post-birth interventions. Even though it's highly unlikely you'll need them."

"And in the meantime?" Addison looks from Derek to Melissa. "What if it gets bigger?"

"That's unlikely."

"But it's not impossible."

Derek rests a hand over Addison's shaking one on her lap; she ignores him.

"How sure are you of the size, anyway? The margin of error on an ultrasound of this caliber – " she pronounces the words as if Melissa was attempting to scan the baby using tin cans and a string – "is material."

"It's not insubstantial," Melissa agrees. "But it's still not likely – "

"I want to know the size."

Melissa sighs. "I can send you for a fetal echo," she says. "It's not what I would normally advise for a VSD that looks like this at this stage of pregnancy."

"Why not?" Derek asks. "Are there risks?"

"It's more likely to create other problems," Melissa says. "The level of detail – half my patients who I send for fetal echos come back worried about something else that turns out to be nothing." She turns to face Addison. "It's up to you. But I promise you, if I thought there was something to be concerned about, I'd be driving you to the hospital myself. It's most likely _fine_ ," Melissa repeats, "and I know it's hard that you just have to wait, but … everyone does."

..

True to her word, Melissa finishes the rest of the scan herself.

It's subdued – he finds he's grateful they had those first moments without issue – their son's reassuring black and white profile with the adorable nose that can't have come from him. They watched his hands and feet move, saw the way he kicked and flipped. It's normal, Melissa said, that they haven't felt him move yet.

It's the placement of her placenta.

It has nothing to do with his heart.

… obviously. They're both doctors.

He squeezes her hand with relief, anyway, and she squeezes back.

"He's beautiful," Melissa says when she finishes, clicking the machine to print the highlights. "You want extras for the grandparents?"

… that's a whole other issue.

..

Addison is quiet, her face white and set, all the way down to the lobby. He places a hand on her back as she exits the elevator; he can feel the tension in her muscles.

"Addie …"

"His heart." Her voice trembles and she pauses, looking up at him with tears in her eyes. "Derek … his _heart._ "

"I know." He rests both hands on her shoulders now, keeping his voice calm even though his own heart is thumping in time with the words too: it's _probably fine, probably fine, probably fine._ "We just have to wait," he says gently, borrowing Melissa's terminology even as he knows the last thing his wife ever wants to do is _wait._

She has many, many gifts, but patience has never been one of them.

And he's not so optimistic now as to think the next time she sees their son's heart will be the second anatomy scan in two weeks. But they can deal with that later.

"He's okay, Addie. Everything looked great."

"Except his heart."

"Everything about his heart looked great, except for one small thing." He sighs. "It's most likely going to close up on its own."

"But it might not."

"And if it doesn't," Derek says calmly, "then we'll deal with it when he's born."

She doesn't respond.

"It's very common, Addie. It's the most common – "

"I _know_." Her voice is dull; he'd expect her to snap at him, remind him of her superior credentials when it comes to fetal development.

"Okay, then." He studies her pained face. "It's okay," he repeats and she just looks away, not meeting his eyes.

He sees something more than fear in her trembling hand.

"Have you eaten?"

"Lunch," she says, shrugging.

He looks at his watch. "That was hours ago. Look, why don't we … get some food. You're not planning to go back to work, are you?"

She shakes her head.

"Let's get something to eat."

"I'm not hungry."

"I know, but you need to eat." He sees the way her hand comes to rest on her bump, tracing its contours, and she doesn't protest.

They're at the car, his keys are in his hands, when he hears a small sound from her. It's an unmistakable one after all these years.

"I'm fine," she says in a choked voice when he looks at her, but even she doesn't try too hard to convince him. The tears are falling now, and she covers her face with both hands.

"Addie …"

He touches her arm, feeling helpless and exposed in the parking lot. He looks from her bowed head to his car, then opens the back seat.

"Get in."

She doesn't respond.

"Addie … get in the car."

She moves her hands now to look up at him through wet eyelashes, surprised. "Derek, we're not in high school."

He could almost laugh even though she's crying – not too hard, yet, they still have time – and she looks torn between the two as well. Frankly, after the emotion of the scan, he can't blame either of them.

She gets into the car, though. It's temperate in the car and he leaves the engine off, cracking the windows for fresh air. And then he follows her into the back seat. She shifts over without even complaining about having to climb in her skirt; Derek always got into cabs first for this reason, he was well trained, but this isn't a cab.

"What are you doing?"

"It's okay," he says quietly. That's all. She's looking away again, her face covered with one hand. "Addie …"

"Derek, this is embarrassing." She peers out the windows. "People could come down and – "

"And look inside my car?" Derek shakes his head.

"I'm okay," she says. "You don't have to – "

She doesn't finish the thought, and in the shadowed light of the parking lot he can see her face crumple again.

When he says her name again she doesn't protest – she slumps against him, giving up any pretense of refusal. He takes the weight of her, cradling the back of her head, and doesn't interrupt as she cries into his shoulder. He doesn't try to quiet her: it's a release of tension and fear, and he knows it, and he knows she needs it.

And he's known her long enough to know it can't wait. She needs it out, now, or it's going to be worse later.

This is _now_ , so time disappears in the humid back seat of his jeep.

..

He hasn't kept track of the time. His arm with his watch is around her back; he couldn't' look even if he wanted to. But finally, she's quiet, just breathing raggedly against his shoulder. And then she's drawing back just enough for him to see her face, her shining eyes with their spiky wet lashes. She looks exhausted.

"Better?" he asks.

" … maybe a little."

He'll take it. Carefully, he resettles her just a bit so he can prop his spine on the locked door. He strokes her hair slowly as they recover together. In his experience, she'll talk when she's ready.

"Derek?"

"Hm?"

"He looked perfect," she says in a very small voice. "Other than … that. The rest of him looked perfect. Didn't it?"

"It did," he assures her, though a part of him is bluffing because the moment coalesced into terror and confusion and that's what seems to be frozen in his mind.

With some effort, he recalls the earlier part of the scan. Their son's profile, the shape of his face. Those tiny arms and legs. His medical training has nothing against the primitive power of those moments. Of that image. _Their son._

"Are you cold?"

Addison is turning to look at him and he realizes he must have shivered.

"No." He moves a stray piece of hair out of her face, then pauses. "Wait. Was that just an excuse to complain more about the weather in Seattle?"

"No!" She smiles a little. "Well, not initially, but since you asked – "

"I didn't ask."

"Then I won't answer."

She leans her head against his neck and for a moment, sitting there, everything is almost okay. Minutes pass in silence in the back seat of the jeep where it's somehow both very odd and perfectly normal to be sitting wrapped in each other's arms.

"Derek?"

He knows what she's going to say before she says it.

"I want the fetal echo."

He just nods, knowing she can feel the motion. Her hand tightens on his for a moment, where she's been holding it in her lap, and he squeezes back. He's not sure who starts to separate first this time, just that she's leaning back and he's helping her sit up. Wordlessly, they're agreeing they're done.

"You're okay?" he confirms as opens the door.

"I'm okay."

He gets out first, offers her a hand out of the back of the jeep, and then watches her cheeks flush an interesting shade of pink when, as she predicted, several people emerge from the lobby of the building and look curiously at them.

Never one to be caught off guard if she can help it, Addison just primly straightens her skirt. Her posture is impeccable. No one can make _crawling out of the back seat of a jeep –_ and then getting back into the jeep, this time in the front – look as elegant as his wife.

He turns over the engine, then realizes he's not sure where they're going.

Her car is at the hospital. They're not planning to go back there until tomorrow, now. He could drive her there to pick it up and let her find her own way back to her hotel, but that doesn't feel right. He could drop her off at the hotel and then go back to his trailer alone, but there's something that seems … wrong about that too, after the appointment.

"Are you, um, are you going to take me back to the hospital so I can get my car?"

Her tone is light enough, and when he glances at her, her lips are quirked in half a smile.

It falters a little under his gaze; he gets it: she's trying to smile, so she won't make him feel worse.

His chest tightens.

"No," he says. "I'm not."

She looks at him.

"Addison … let's go see Doc."

Confusion flickers in her eyes.

"He misses you," Derek reminds her, keeping his tone light. "And since I'm the only one living in the trailer again, he's gotten used to as much time as he likes for his evening walks."

"I thought you wanted to eat," she says after a moment.

"There's food in the trailer."

She purses her lips. "No trout," she says.

"Noted."

She looks torn, still. "My car … ." Her voice trails off.

"I can drive you back to the hotel. And drive you to work in the morning."

"It's out of your way," she says finally.

"So chip in for gas." He touches the side of her face, not really sure why, but she rests her cheek against his palm for a moment as if she expected the contact. Or at the very least … didn't mind it.

When her eyes meet his, they're that paler shade of green he associates with her tears. He watches her lower them to look down at her hands, twisting her rings around her finger. She's conflicted.

"Addie."

She looks up again.

"It's just a dog," he says quietly.

She looks like she's about to say something, but she presses her lips together and nods.

They speak very little on the drive to the ferry, but twice he glances over in the dusky light and sees tears shining in her eyes. Once, he sees her brush briskly at her cheeks, half turns away like she doesn't want him to see.

It's enough to convince him this was the right decision.

..

She's been walking through water since the moment time stood still in the exam room. Now they're moving through actual water, as the ferry cuts a smooth path through the bay. The motor is humming under her feet; it's close enough to rush hour for there to be people chatting and walking around and generally creating enough distraction that she can blend in.

Briefly, she closes her eyes, and when she opens them Derek is looking slightly away, across the water. She studies his familiar profile. She isn't going to say anything, but then she does – she feels scrubbed raw after today's appointment anyway.

"You pretended not to see me," she says.

Derek glances at her. "What, just now? Your eyes were closed."

"No." She sighs. "Back in – it was a few weeks after I got here. I was standing right there, and you – " she gestures toward the upper deck where she saw him, feeling the same little stir of excitement to see his handsome face, his windblown hair, that she has since medical school.

He looks like he doesn't remember.

Of course he doesn't.

She does, though, and she's clinging to it with all she can. That version of her husband, the one who ignored her on the ferry and snapped at her in a patient's room and called her names outside the elevators … she needs to remember him. Because it's not doing her any good right now, with everything else that's going on, to be confronted with _this_ version instead.

The one who looks at her. And talks to her. And touches her.

They're getting space, and they've been doing so well.

But every time she inhales the terror from earlier washes back over her. The pause, the indrawn breath. The ones she's done herself so many times.

 _What is it?_

 _Don't be alarmed._

She draws a shuddering breath and feels Derek's arm settle around her waist.

His voice is low, but firm: "He's okay, Addison."

The twinkling skyline lights are receding behind them. "He's _probably_ okay," she corrects quietly. She's staring at the low-hanging sun; she can't look at her husband right now.

He's probably okay.

Everything is probably fine.

… except, of course, for all the things that could still go wrong, even if their baby's heart heals itself as she can admit, with some of the emotion of the moment healed, is the most likely outcome.

 **One.** _The baby could hate her._ What? She's not exactly the most likable figure, not to everyone, anyway. Her upward evaluations are usually a mixed bag, and while it's not likely their son will refer to her as _too bitchy to teach us anything useful_ , he might still be put off by her. He's half-Derek, and Derek isn't always thrilled with her, and half the things Derek likes about her – or used to – aren't exactly on the Mother-Son bonding list anyway. Yes, their nieces and nephews all love her, but they're Shepherds. Her son is going to be half-Montgomery and Addison can trace both sides of her family past the Mayflower back to the British Isles where, she's fairly certain, the first Bradfords boarded ships to the New World because everyone in England was sick of them.

 **Two.** _The baby could hate them both._ Maybe she needs more therapy, because somehow the idea of their son disliking Derek, too, sounds so much worse than just turning on her. Derek has done many things wrong, but loving their son has never been one of them. Derek always wanted to be a father. Derek spent his entire young adulthood giving horsey rides and fixing boo boos and playing endless games of catch, baseball, and even hopscotch. He's remarkable with his pediatric patients and gentle with every child she's ever seen cross his path. Derek would be a father by now, she's certain, if he hadn't married her. The thought is a little sad, but sadder still would be if their son didn't recognize that.

 **Three.** _The baby could inherit the worst of both of them._ The baby could turn out to be some kind of Derek-Bizzy hybrid who likes stinky trout fishing and complicated hair products but also reminds her on a daily basis what a disappointing daughter she is. Mother. Whatever. The anatomy scan, when it wasn't giving her a panic attack, showed her more of her son than she's seen yet. Beyond the long femurs Derek teased her about at the last scan, clearly from his maternal line, and the skull she's certain is his father's, their baby looks very much like himself. What has he inherited? As of now, she has no idea.

 **Four.** _She could be terrible at giving birth._ Why not? She's terrible at a lot of things: keeping her marriage vows. Getting along with her parents. Convincing her mother in law she doesn't dress like a pregnant whore is hard and she's been spending the last year of her life running from hard things.

 **Five.** _The Chief's race._ Slight change of topic, but this one is complicated. Frankly, she's not sure what the worst outcome could be. Derek as chief? That's all they need: for him to be even busier, with even less time for his family. No comment on Addison making chief. If Burke makes it, Derek will resent him and – by extension – Addison. Great. And Mark Sloan, Chief of Surgery? Let's just say she'll be back to her first trimester habit of daily vomiting if that's the case.

 **Six.** _The whole living situation thing._ Right now she lives in a hotel. Her husband lives in a trailer. Neither one, as far as she's concerned, is sustainable in any real way. All she needs is for Carolyn to get wind of where they're living and try to drag them back to Connecticut to live in Derek's old bedroom. Which is smaller than the trailer, just as much a shrine to her husband, and doesn't smell much better either.

 **Seven.** _Meredith Grey._ Meredith isn't the enemy. She's an ally, if anything, she's pretty certain of that. Neutral at worst. But that doesn't mean it can't go wrong. Her husband's ex-girlfriend in the same hospital as his estranged-then-reunited-then-estranged-again pregnant wife? It's a French farce waiting to happen. Which is, at least, somewhat better than a Greek Tragedy. Which brings her to …

 **Eight.** _Mark._ Mark, Mark, Mark. Chief's race aside, his very presence is a potential disaster. He was Derek's brother until he slept with his wife and then he showed up in Seattle to avenge what he thinks of as a lost child? Mark is a loose cannon under the best of circumstances; here in Seattle, he's more like a ticking time bomb. He had no shame sniffing around Callie in front of them and she knows he has no qualms about provoking Derek. Mark wants Derek's attention and Addison knows better than anyone how painful that unmet desire can be. What will he do to get it? … that's what she's afraid of.

 **Nine.** _Her family._ … such as they are. At some point, they have to find out about her pregnancy. Right? Except she's been so focused on the idea of _pregnancy_ she's almost forgotten what comes at the end of it. She's having a baby – with Derek – and while Bizzy disapproved of her affair, she was never crazy about the marriage to begin with. How is she going to feel about the only passage of the Montgomery genes into the oh so quotidian Shepherd family tree? Then again, maybe Archer will do her a solid and find an illegitimate baby somewhere or something. She wouldn't put it past him. Maybe if the whole Seattle thing doesn't work out, she can go work for NIH and build a genetic database aimed at tracking down convenient long lost relatives.

 **Ten.** _Derek._ Derek has been going so … right … since their blowup that it's hard to remember how easily it can all fall apart. He's careful with her, tentative and thoughtful. How long is that going to last? The fire between them that's been slow burning for a decade and a half is the core of their relationship. It's still there, but he's been … roasting marshmallows on it or something, and that's fine for now. But thinking about the future uncertainty still makes her feel, sometimes, like she can't take a full breath. She's screwed up with him so many times and she's not so blind to his faults that she doesn't know he's screwed up too. But he's _her_ screwup, and she's his. That's how it should be. _AddisonandDerek_ , and their breakfast-loving baby too.

And those are just the first ten that pop into her head. Stall the ferry a bit and she'll come up with more.

Anything can happen.

Anything can go wrong.

He still has his arm around her, though, when the ferry docks with a thud at Bainbridge. Admittedly, it's nice.

..

She can tell he's watching her buckle her seatbelt when they've retrieved the car from the ferry … like he thinks something's wrong. Studiously, she avoids his gaze.

But she can't help her fingers drumming the console. His brush hers,

"Addie."

"I know," she says, and when he doesn't respond she keeps talking. "Derek, I know the statistics. Believe me, I know them. I know this is – minor. I know it's probably fine."

"But," he prompts her, not missing the inflection.

"But … a lot of things."

"Try me."

She sighs. It would be easier if the sun would just set already. This is no time for long summer days, not when everyone knows how much easier it is to talk in the dark.

"But it's my fault."

She can tell from the sound of his breath that she's surprised him. Just a little.

"Addison … you know that's not true."

She doesn't respond.

"You didn't do anything to cause this. It happens in – "

"Please don't give me statistics," she interrupts quietly.

"Okay, I won't." He pauses for a moment; she can see in her peripheral vision the lines of tension and worry in his forehead. She's making them worse.

Of course she's making them worse.

"Forget it," she says.

He glances at her quickly before returning his gaze to the road. "We don't have to forget it, Addison, but I don't understand where it's coming from."

 _It's coming from me. It's coming from I ruin everything I touch, and I should have known this baby wouldn't be safe from me either._

Her stomach clenches; she's not going to think about it.

She's not.

And she doesn't need him being so _patient_ with her, either.

"It's fine, Derek."

"Addison." He lets out a frustrated sounding sigh.

(Okay, good, that's more like it.)

"What?" She lets herself sound defensive. "That's what you said, isn't it? It's probably fine."

 _Just take me to my hotel_. She almost snaps it except that she's afraid he'll agree.

So she turns and stares out the window. All this time and she still doesn't recognize much of the semi-darkened streets. There was a time she could blink awake halfway home from the hospital and tell before her eyes were fully open the exact intersection. Each avenue had its own scent, its own character.

Then again, she probably looked around more, in New York. She's spent so much time in Seattle willfully blind. What choice did she have?

Derek doesn't push it, and the ride the rest of the way in silence. She's tired, very tired, and might be dozing when the rhythmic click of the indicator interrupts. They're turning up the rural road that leads to his trailer.

She inhales shakily; it's been a while.

..

Doc is thrilled to see her.

They can hear his nails scratching before the key is even in the lock as if he's already caught her scent and as soon as the door opens he leaps up on her.

Derek expected as much, based on the way the dog has been guarding her spot in the bed and gazing mournfully at her formerly overstuffed shoe cabinet. But it's still amusing to see. Amusing, and –

"Down, boy – I know you're happy to see her, but give her a little space," Derek says, although Addison isn't complaining. Gently, he urges Doc down; the dog ignores him, skittering in circles around his recovered mistress. Addison for her part seems almost as happy to see the dog. She crouches down – he keeps his mouth shut, after years of marital training, to see his almost-twenty-weeks pregnant wife squatting over her heels. She manages to make it look graceful, even while Doc seems determined to knock her over.

"Do you believe me now?" Derek asks.

Addison looks up at him. Both her hands are buried in the dog's fur and while she seems to be thinking of a response, Doc takes advantage of her distraction to lick her face. She laughs in response and then Derek does too.

"That he missed me? … yeah, I guess I do."

She bustles around the trailer. He can tell she's trying to act normal, uncomfortable with her show of emotion in the car earlier. So he lets her open cabinets and frown at the oven and fuss over Doc without comment.

"You promised me no trout."

"I don't recall promising."

"Derek!" She stands up, a dishtowel in one hand – when did she pick up a dishtowel? – and her outraged-at-his-teasing face is a dozen kitchens they've shared over the years.

But then she leans her hips against the counter and his gaze is drawn to her new shape. She sees him, apparently – she's never missed much, and cups the bump with her free hand, looking at him almost shyly.

That's new.

A dozen kitchens over the years, half as many homes, more rooms than he could ever could, but this – their growing son, inside her – this is new. Achingly new, still. Very much so.

She breaks the silence. "No trout, Derek."

"No trout." He reaches past her, just barely brushing the silk of one sleeve, to open the refrigerator. "See for yourself," he prods when she doesn't move.

She looks like she's biting back a retort, lifting her eyebrows mutely and then gesturing for him to give her room.

He watches, amused, as she peers into the refrigerator.

"Steak," she says approvingly. "That will do."

"Will it? I'm so relieved."

She makes a face at him and he makes one back; for a moment, their banter could place them anywhere in the last sixteen years.

Then, a moment too late, he realizes – "Addison, wait."

She frowns. "Two – why are you only marinating one of the steaks?"

He doesn't respond.

He might have gotten away with it, too, but Doc is newly energized by his mistress's arrival, apparently, and he trots over, stands between the Shepherds, and barks with blatant anticipation.

Addison tilts her head. "Oh, Derek."

"What? He needs iron. It's not a big deal."

She looks from the two separate portions of steak to his face, and back again, then raises her eyebrows. "That's a good cut, honey."

"Well, he's a good dog."

Doc barks, recognizing the familiar phrase and Addison looks at him fondly. "Yeah, he is."

..

She couldn't help teasing him a little – Derek always prided himself on his grilling skills, and when her mother-in-law wasn't passive-aggressively commenting on how _modern_ it was that he was the cook of their marriage, Addison quite enjoyed those skills herself. Derek was a natural at a summer barbecue, and Addison would never trust herself with a good cut of steak. But she can recognize one, and seeing it now cooked to perfection for Doc is … well, she's had a hard day, a stressful and even tearful day.

She has a hard marriage, one that's currently in unofficial separation.

She's had a hard month, thanks to Mark's arrival, a hard _year_ thanks to all of her own choices.

But watching her husband cook a steak for their dog is just plain adorable, and she's not so far gone she can't recognize it.

He does a good job with the other filet too – the one they're sharing, and she doesn't question Derek's choice to split the sum total of the meat 50/50 with the dog. It's more well done than either of them would normally prefer, but still pinker than he's seemed comfortable with her eating before tonight.

"You think it's cooked enough?"

He glances at her. "You want me to put it back on the grill."

"No." She stares at her plate, willing herself to stop talking as much as she's willing him to stop accommodating her. "It's not because of the scan, though? You figure I've already screwed him up, so I can eat rare meat now?"

For a moment he's silent and she thinks she's ruined another evening.

 _What did you expect? What did either of us expect?_

She thinks he'll snap at her, roll his eyes at the very least, but he surprises her by responding calmly. "You haven't screwed him up," he says. "The baby is great. The steak … is great."

There's her modest husband.

He points his fork at her. "Let's just before it gets cold."

She doesn't argue.

They end up sitting side by side on the little deck, plates on their laps. She sees the moment Derek half-reaches for a bottle of beer and then changes his mind. He passes it off – _I'm driving you back to the hotel_ – but she knows it's because of her own abstention and she's touched.

..

"You think he's better?" Addison asks when they've finished and they're clearing their plates – well, Derek is clearing hers while she scratches Doc's belly; he's flopped down practically begging for it and she's not going to refuse him.

"I think he's getting there," Derek says from above her.

"I want him to be okay." She stands up, taking his proffered hand – she's not going to get any more graceful in the next twenty weeks, that's for sure.

"So do I." Derek smiles at her. "So does he."

"Doc is sick," Addison says, glancing at him. "Doc is sick, and our baby has a cardiac abnormality."

"Doc is recovering," Derek corrects her, "and our baby has the most benign cardiac abnormality a fetus can have."

"I don't take very good care of our babies, I guess," she says before she can stop herself. "I hope the third time's the charm."

"Addie. Doc's cancer is hardly your fault. And neither is the baby's – issue." He pauses, looking confused. "Third?" he asks. "You're not counting the goldfish I won at that bar in medical school, are you?"

"Finocrates?" She shakes her head. "No."

"Then what – "

He stops talking; he must have figured it out and shame washes over her. Is she determined to ruin this, the peace they've found together, his kindness?

"It's not your fault," he says quietly.

"Maybe not Doc, and maybe not even this baby." She rests a hand on the bump, and she can't stop herself. Not anymore. "But what about the other one?"

His face looks pained; it blurs and she's looking at Mark, first in his apartment in Manhattan and then in that claustrophobic scrub room in Seattle: anger and pain blending on his face. Accusation.

 _This is how it starts,_ he said to Derek.

"Addie." He's resting a hand on her cheek. Derek, not Mark. "Try not to get worked up," he says softly.

"I'm not." Tears fill her eyes anyway. "I'm sorry, Derek, I don't want to talk about it, I just – "

"It's okay."

They stay like that for a moment, with his hand on her face, and she's desperately grateful for the connection.

 _He knows. He knows everything now, and he hasn't run away. He hasn't left you._

… _not yet, anyway._

She draws a deep, shaking breath. How to express what she feels, when she's not even sure how to name it? That combination of shame and deep regret with an even deeper conviction that her choice was the only one? Along with gratitude for where she is now, even if it's undeserved?

Silently, she studies her husband's face. There's concern in his eyes, not judgment.

"Derek … have you ever … had to do something and you knew it was right, but it hurt anyway?"

..

He's looking at the tears swimming in her eyes. She's already cried too much today; there's a rawness to her face that makes his chest feel tight.

The shock of Mark's arrival and the news he delivered came so swiftly to him that he was focused on his own reaction to the issue. Admittedly, he was more shocked by their staying together than by the pregnancy she terminated. He can recall a pregnancy scare in medical school, Addison's matter-of-fact response: _this isn't the time_ , she said. _We're not ready_ , and he agreed supportively even though he couldn't help a few impractical fantasies. She turned out not to be pregnant anyway, and they moved on.

He hasn't pondered whether she regrets her abortion. Or how different it might be if she weren't pregnant now.

He considers her question:

 _Have you ever … had to do something and you knew it was right, but it hurt anyway?_

In a flash, months disappear and he's back in the hospital, begging Bailey for help. To tell him what to do.

 _It's not hard. It's painful, but it's not hard._

To Addison he just nods; he doesn't elaborate and she doesn't ask him to.

"I'm sorry," she whispers. "I don't want this to take anything away from us, from him – "

"It doesn't."

He's being truthful, and he can see in her eyes – just a flash – that she believes him.

It's enough, for now.

..

She stays.

She's staying for Doc.

"Looks like he might go on hunger strike if you leave," Derek teases her, when Doc is too busy licking her hand to even see the biscuit he's holding out.

"And give up his nightly filet mignon?" Addison looks up at him, smiling. She's sitting on the bed, cross legged, Doc's head in her lap. It feels, just for a moment, like she never left.

"Hey. There's no _nightly filet mignon_." Derek frowns. "Sometimes it's hamburger."

Addison scratches the dog behind his ears. "You have a pretty good thing going here, don't you, Doc?"

He pants with what sounds like agreement.

She's missed him. She's missed this: his warm heavy body across hers, the loving way he follows her around the trailer, the appreciative way he receives her caresses.

"I'm, uh, I didn't really bring anything."

"You left some things here."

He's not looking at her; he's looking past her, at one of the cabinets over her head they once fought over.

"I'll drive you back, if you want," he says. "Doc might have to go with you, though. And I'm not sure the Rustic or Whatever Inn takes dogs."

"True." She's stroking Doc's head.

Who is she kidding? She has no desire to leave the warm trailer, with its lingeringly pleasant charcoal-and-steak scent, to go back to her hotel room by herself.

But she also knows that sleeping here … is maybe not a great idea.

Although she's tired.

She's very tired.

"Just tonight … okay?"

He nods. "Just tonight."

..

In a pair of silky pajamas she found in a cabinet – the bottom two buttons undone, to her chagrin and his carefully concealed amusement – she settles on the bed. He keeps a wide berth.

 _Space._

They need space.

Don't they?

She admits to being exhausted – she's pregnant, as if either one of them could forget it – and he encourages her to sleep.

But when he looks over at her, she's propped up against the pillows expectantly.

"Addison?"

She smiles at him. "Aren't you going to say goodnight to your son?"

His stomach hollows out. "Of course."

There's very little room on Addison's side of the bed – Doc is sleeping loyally and diagonally with his head resting on her thigh – but they manage to shift enough that he can sit down beside her. Carefully, with her nod of encouragement, he rests a hand on her bump.

It feels different.

It feels the same, but it feels different. He cups the shape of it, memorizes _today_ and _right now_ because this one day of her pregnancy will never come again.

"Good night, baby," he says quietly, in person for the first time in – what feels like forever, instead of on the phone. "I loved seeing you today," he continues. "And so did Mommy." He feels Addison's slight indrawn breath. "I think you look just like her. Definitely her nose. I loved seeing all your fingers and toes, and … you've been doing a great job in there, growing." It's hard to believe they're almost halfway done. "I, uh, I don't know how much you heard," he continues, "before, when we were at the doctor, but I don't want you to worry. Everything is okay." He thinks about the pediatric patients he's treated and swallows hard. "Your heart has four chambers," he says. "Two of them are called ventricles and they're the ones that do the pumping. That's part of why you have such a strong heartbeat." The first they heard his pounding heartbeat is seared in his memory. Forever. "The doctor saw a little hole between the two walls," he says, leaving out in case their son missed it that the first doctor to see it was his mother, after wrestling the transducer from the surprised sonographer. "A lot of babies have that little hole, while they're still inside their moms. Most of the time it just closes up on its own, and that's probably what yours will do. And if it doesn't, we'll fix it. You have two surgeon parents and you don't have anything to worry about. You just … keep doing what you're doing. Keep growing." He swears he can feel life within her as he speaks. "I love you," he says softly. "And, uh, I'm sorry about the overcooked steak. Once you get here, Daddy will teach you how to make it nice and bloody the way Mommy usually likes it."

"I liked it this way too."

He's surprised by her soft-voiced interjection – he's grown used to speaking to his son on the phone without her input. But here she is, smiling down at both of them.

"You hear that? Mommy's admitting she liked it. Maybe you can remind her of that if she forgets." He moves his hand slightly, ignoring the pangs that remind him of how they used to sleep. He used to be able to hold both of them, all night.

But now he can't.

"Good night, baby," he says again, and before he realizes what he's doing he's leaned over to press a kiss to the bump.

"Sorry," he says, flushing; Addison is looking at him when he sits up.

"It's okay." She looks at him for a moment. "I'm pretty tired. I'm just going to – "

She gestures at the bed, and he nods.

"Derek – can you just – can you take Doc for a walk or something?"

He's confused; she's looking down at the bed, toying with the edge of the comforter.

"You need me to leave the trailer?"

"No. Well, yes. Just – just for a little while. Just until I'm asleep."

She looks up at him, her expression embarrassed enough that he's not going to refuse her. He nods and she looks relieved; he reaches out to move away a lock of hair that's fallen in her face and she flinches. "Also, um, you probably … shouldn't touch me right now." More of her hair falls forward and he realizes it's not an accident; her cheeks underneath their curtain of long hair are turning scarlet.

"… okay," he says, "I'll go, if you want me to go?"

She nods quickly, not meeting his eyes.

"Okay," he says again. "If you're sure you're – "

"Derek, go." She attempts to encourage Doc to stand. "Take the dog out. Just – give me a minute."

But Doc is going nowhere; he's plastered to his mistress's side for the first time in far too long for his liking, it seems. He just curls up tighter when Derek beckons him, the first time he's ever seen him refuse a walk.

"He's missed you," Derek says quietly. "I told you."

So he leaves the trailer by himself, as she asked him to – not minding. He likes that Addison isn't alone, anyway.

..

He doesn't go far; he takes the minimal walk to the grill to confirm he's left it in the proper condition, glances back at the trailer a few times to see the warm yellow glow emanating from the windows. Then he settles in one of the chairs on the porch, leaning back to take in the stars. It's a clear night, neither warm nor cool. There's a misty neutrality he associates with his new home just as much as he knows Addison doesn't enjoy it the way he does.

Alone, he replays their interaction after he said goodnight to their baby, the way she flushed deeply and ordered him out of the trailer.

Addison wants space. Addison says they need space, and Addison has been wiling – not just willing, but resolute, standing up to him whenever he tried to push the boundaries – to take that space.

He also knows that he hasn't seen the last of her fears about the baby's health or the self-recrimination he's not so thick-headed he can't realize is partly on him.

Once again, now, he's conflicted. Addison needs space from him.

But she never said she needed to be alone. Not in so many words.

..

Alone with the baby – well, both babies – she rests one hand on Doc's lightly tangled fur and the other on the significant-feeling rise of her belly.

"Your mommy has some self-control," she tells their son quietly. "Do you believe it? I know, I'm surprised too."

She tries not to focus on how it felt to have him next to her on the bed. To have all four of them together.

 _Right._

It felt right.

She reminds herself, with all the strength she has left, that she's doing this for him. She's doing this for them. It won't do just to fall into old habits; that's how a lot of her problems happened in the first place.

Shifting a little, restless, she tries to find a comfortable position. Doc is accommodating and sweet, pushing his cold, wet nose into her hand before shuffling down to rest at – well, _on_ – her feet.

She sent Derek away, so it's not fair to wonder when he's coming back.

Or what it will be like when he has to go to sleep.

Sleep overtakes her before she can worry too much more about it.

..

Derek waits to place the call until he's back in the trailer and his wife's slow, even breathing and heavily relaxed posture demonstrate she's deeply asleep.

"Wait." Nancy's voice is sharp over the phone, though still concerned. "That's it? Really? Derek, you had me convinced something was wrong."

"I said it was probably fine."

"You did, but – " She stops talking for a moment, and he can hear her breathing. "Addie's an MFM," she says finally.

"Yes. I've read her CV."

Nancy ignores his response. "She knows how common this is, and she knows it's probably fine."

Intellectually, maybe. He doesn't say that, but something tells him he doesn't need to. Nancy, after all, is an OB in addition to a mother many times over.

"You've been in touch with Addison," he suggests.

"She was supposed to call me after the scan," Nancy reminds him.

… which doesn't tell him if his sister knows they're currently living apart. Addison and Nancy were always close, but he can't assume anything, and he doesn't elaborate.

"She was upset after the scan," Derek says instead; he's not trying to make her feel guilty or to betray his wife's confidence, but it seems like something she should know.

"You want me to fly out there," Nancy clarifies, "for the fetal echo?"

"Yes. Well, to spend some time with Addison."

He can hear her breathing.

"And the baby," he adds.

"The fetus."

"The baby fetus," he concedes.

Nancy is silent.

"Look, if you don't want to –"

"Derek, when did I say I didn't want to?"

There's a moment of silence on the phone in which he hears just Addison's slumbering breaths and Doc's rather slobbering one. They sound sweet together, and when he looks over to the bed he sees the dog is cuddled against her legs.

 _... just until I'm asleep ... you probably shouldn't touch me right now ..._

"Derek."

He realizes Nancy has been trying to get his attention.

"I'm emailing my travel agent right now."

Relief washes over him. "You don't have to," he says, feeling obligated. "You were just out here a few –"

"Don't be silly," she interrupts in her bossy-big-sister voice. "I'm flying out, Derek. Even if I didn't want to, so far I'm the only one in the family who's seen Addie pregnant."

"So?"

"So … do you have any idea how much it's going to drive Kate crazy if I'm going to Seattle a second time before she can get her shrinky hands on Addison?"

He smiles in spite of himself.

"Not to mention Mom. Although, you know, I might throw Mom a bone and let her give me some of her old maternity tents to bring Addison. How do you think Addie would look in a muumuu?"

He doesn't answer.

When Nancy speaks again, she sounds more serious. "I'll see you soon, Derek. And in the meantime – look, doctors make the worst patients and OBs are notoriously terrible. Someday I'll tell you what Melissa was like in labor. I was worried when you called, but it's going to be okay. The baby's fine. Really."

His sister's tone is firm and professional … believable, even.

 _It's going to be okay. The baby's fine._

He lets those reassuring words ring in his ears as he prepares for bed – quietly, though he knows Addison's sleep cycles well enough to know he's not going to wake her that way. Getting into bed while staying mindful of Addison's request for space … that's a little trickier. He manages, climbing in from the foot and easing onto the small portion of the mattress he's been relegated to even in his wife's absence.

Doc wakes somewhat, seems to sense his presence, shuffling higher in bed between them, and then settles back to sleep.

He's exhausted – mentally, physically – but sleep eludes him.

He rests a weary hand in Doc's fur, stroking his head.

He counts VSD statistics instead of sheep.

 _It's fine._

 _It's okay._

 _It's probably fine._

He counts elements of the periodic table and bones in the human skeleton.

But it's not until a sleeping Addison shifts without waking, curling on her side until her fingers are threaded through his in Doc's fur, that he's finally able to drift off.

* * *

 _THEY'RE IN THE TRAILER TOGETHER. ... just saying. Progress is slow with these two, and they're not great at always moving linearly, but they're in the trailer together. At least for tonight. And now Nancy's on the way. And it's probably fine. I told you guys the Sheplet would be okay. Now for the Shepherds to keep working on that "okay" thing ..._

 _Thank you as always for reading! I love hearing your thoughts, so I hope you'll review and share them with me. See you next Sunday! (In the meantime, I'm going to suggest anyone who hasn't already check out **Sonterra** by **Meadowlark12**. It's hitting me in all my Addek feels and she just updated yesterday. She's also not above a cliffhanger or two ... I guess it runs in the Addek Nation Family.)_


	26. Quick

**A/N: It's not Sunday morning, but it is Sunday, and not just in Seattle either. Thank you so much to everyone who commented on the last chapter (and those who read it without commenting, too - I appreciate you and I'd always love to hear from you if you haven't written before!). This is another long chapter, but after this they might get _slightly_ more human sized (keeping in mind my tendencies). There's a lot I'm excited about heading our way, and I hope you enjoy this chapter. **

**Happy QPQ Sunday!**

* * *

 ** _Quick_**

 _Gestational Age: Nineteen weeks, four days_ _  
_ _Baby is the Size of: a pomegranate (variety is possible when you have as many pregnancy books as baby's mother does)_ _  
_ _Baby's Parents Are: nervous, since the scan, and nervous about the next one, and nervous in general  
Baby's Parents Are Also: not about to tell baby that, because baby is still perfect  
But Baby's Parents Are Coincidentally: in the same place, as in the same trailer, which has only one bed because of course it does  
_ _  
_..

She wakes up quickly, and for a reason.

… she's just not sure what the reason was.

The lingering fragment of a dream, maybe? Now she's staring at the curved ceiling that was first unfamiliar, then slowly became something like familiar, and feels new again now. The small space is full of the rich scent of fresh coffee – she'd almost forgotten what it felt like to stir from sleep in the same room as someone else. She can tell without turning her head that her husband will be in the kitchen, or what passes for a kitchen in the trailer, moving around with the same dawn energy he's had since medical school. Morning was when he would be the most optimistic, the most full of ideas. He used to wake her sometimes to share whatever thoughts he'd been brewing with the coffee, bringing a mug of it too. They made some of their best plans that way.

It isn't Derek who woke up her up this morning, though. She's experienced at sleeping through interruptions – she's had to be – and the sensation she has is that something, or someone, is responsible for her current state.

… it's not the dog either, because she's the only one in bed. Doc must be with Derek; there's no doubt he was happy to see her and he slept loyally between them, but Addison also saw the steak Derek bought him and if that's how Doc's been eating, she can't exactly blame him for waking up with Derek.

She's amusing herself calling up memories of the previous night's barbecue when she suddenly knows what woke her up.

She knows – because she feels it again.

"Derek. Derek!"

She scrambles to half sit up as he turns around with a concerned expression.

"Are you – "

"Come over here. Quickly!" She gestures frantically and then he's at her side.

"Addison, what happened?"

"I felt him," she whispers. "Derek. I _felt_ him."

She doesn't have to say anything else. His eyes widen. "Really? Are you sure?"

"I'm sure." She's laughing, maybe crying a little, as he hastens down next to her and she guides his hands to her bump. "I don't know if he'll do it again. He took so long the last time. I didn't know what it would feel like. It's – it's not what I expected." She's babbling; she draws a deep breath, trying to stop herself, though he doesn't seem concerned.

"How did you know that's what it was?" he asks.

"… I just knew." She shrugs, a little embarrassed, half propped up on her elbows watching the way he's focused so intently on her belly.

There's a rush of something inside her – joy mixed with relief.

 _You're okay, baby. You're okay, and you're telling me that yourself. You're a fighter._

"Honey … he might not kick again right now." She rests a hand over her husband's, not wanting him to be too disappointed. "Maybe I should eat something, and then – "

"I felt something!" He's beaming like a kid on Christmas morning – maybe how _their_ kid would have looked on Christmas morning, with both of them, if she hadn't let her secrets ruin everything – and she can't help grinning back.

"That was him, right?" Derek moves his hand slightly, looking amazed. "Addie?"

"That was him."

He's touching her with both hands now – lightly but with a careful sort of firm pressure so it's not ticklish at all. She knows those hands so well. She inhales sharply as his thumbs trace over her skin, and he looks up at her.

"Did I hurt you?"

 _We hurt each other. Too much, too easily, too often._

She shakes her head.

"I can't believe he kicked. He really kicked." He's focused on her belly again. "You did it," he says, addressing the bump directly now. "Good work, son."

The word _son_ goes straight through her chest.

Their son.

Her heart flutters – the heart inside her body that's growing his body with _his_ heart and she remembers the cardiac anomaly and swallows hard.

"He's okay," Derek says quietly, as if he can hear her thoughts. "He kicked."

"He kicked," she repeats.

"He kicked."

And then, as if to join the Shepherd chorus, their son does it again.

They both let out excited sounds to feel the movement and then she laughs, teasing him that they'll startle the baby.

"He kicked," she says again, not caring if she sounds like an idiot and then she's hugging him or he's hugging her and they're both laughing because _he kicked._

Their baby kicked.

She's breathing in the familiar scent of his well worn undershirt – washed to softness – and the feeling of his arms is somehow exactly the same and completely different from the way he held her in the car the previous evening. She's not going to get emotional, not going to cry – not much, anyway, except her fingers are curling on the back of his shoulders and she's thinking about the way his dark curls feel against her and wondering if their son will have his hair.

Their _son._

She's not sure who draws back first. "We should – "

"Yeah." He sits back. "Okay."

"The coffee." She gestures vaguely toward the kitchen and he follows the motion of her hand.

"It's decaf." He gives her a rueful sort of smile. "I had the beans left over anyway, and I thought you might like some."

She stares.

She knows he can only brew one kind of coffee.

Just one kind at a time in that stupid tiny little camping coffeepot and he's brewing it for her.

And their baby kicked.

"Derek, wait."

He turns around halfway off the bed and she's kneeling up before she can stop herself, weaving her fingers into his hair and using gravity to pull him down to her. Her palms scrape the scruff on his unshaven face – the rough sensation sends a chill through her – and her lips find his before he can ask her what she's doing. A powerful pulse is swelling within her. She needs this, needs _him_ , and it's not an itch.

It's not scratching.

It's … them. It's Addison and Derek, Derek and Addison, it's the two of them and _god_ , she's missed the feel of him. From the way he's breathing he's missed her too and she's seized with urgency – she can't stop, won't stop, but then his hand is sliding over her hip along the silk pajama top she had to leave partially unbuttoned last night to accommodate her bump –

And she's remembering the circumstances of this moment, the jeep and ferry and the trailer and the dog and their baby who kicked and _space_ they're supposed to have _space_ but her own heartbeat is so loud in her ears at the same time.

"We should stop," she whispers, and she's not sure if she's relieved or disappointed that he's nodding against her head. He holds on to her for just a moment more and she has to force herself not to cling.

She's shaking, a little, when he eases her away.

"It's okay," he says quietly.

She nods. "It's, um, it's exciting. The kicking, I mean."

"Exactly." He smiles at her, though his eyes look a little sad.

She does her best to smile back, looking down and pulling the two sides of her pajama top together, self-conscious.

"It's okay," he says again, but this time his expression is a little mischievous. "I already have it memorized … unfortunately."

She laughs a little, with partly faux-outrage. "Unfortunately?"

But she knows what he means, as he stands up from the bed with what looks like effort and then holds a hand out to help her up.

"We're getting space," she says softly as he pulls her to her feet.

Why does it sound like a question?

"We're getting space," he confirms.

For a moment they just look at each other.

"How's, uh, how did Doc seem this morning?" she asks, moving her hair away from her face self-consciously, forcing herself to re-focus.

"He seemed happy." Derek takes her cue, taking a step away. "I was going to take him out. You want to – "

She does.

It's okay. It's okay because they're getting space and because it's Seattle with its odd weather, cool enough on this summer morning to suffice as a cold shower. Or at least she hopes it will.

They get it together, enough to take Doc for a walk – a slow, lazy walk, sharing her thermal mug of decaf that Derek even deigns to sip. It's too cold for a half buttoned pajama top which means that she's weather one of Derek's flannel shirts thrown over her silky pajama pants.

It's comforting, it smells like him and is the kind of soft you can only be after a decade of washing. Broken in, sturdy enough to last this long but soft. So soft.

She's tucked the silky pants into the wellington boots she left here – it's not like she was going to use them at the inn – and there's something about the pre dawn light or the _just tonight_ sleepover or the way they had to force themselves apart like teenagers that makes her feel a little shy.

Or maybe it's wearing his shirt, the way it reminds her of the first nights she spent with him in medical school, wearing one of his shirts to the grubby student café the next morning for coffee and greasy egg sandwiches before class, feeling the scent of him still surrounding her. Everything was heightened, then.

The morning light is low and soft and so is their walk. Gentle. She watches Doc carefully, observing his progress. She watches him carefully, his progress – there's no question the surgery helped him but also that he's still healing. He seems cautious himself, licking each of their hands, any faces he can reach when they crouch down, and still exploring the grasses and edge of the lake. Healing like his can't be quick. It takes time.

..

They're playing their gentler version of fetch – which is more or less handing a tiredly eager Doc one stick after another – as the slow rise in temperature reminds him that time is passing.

He's been giving plenty of time to Doc, in the morning and in the evening, but they've already been out walking for a while. He glances at Addison to gauge her sense of the timing but her expression is faraway. When she notices he's looking at her she blushes, visibly, and the color of her cheeks combined with the shape of her in his old flannel shirt, the way she grins at him almost shyly – he's taken back to their first years of each other. When they were young, when everything started.

Doc stands up on him then, taking his attention, and he rubs the dog's fur instead of scolding him. They're not much for disciplining him post surgery – if they ever were before – and a delighted seeming Doc seals the deal by climbing up on Addison next, his muddy paws leaving prints on her silky pants.

"Doc," he scolds gently, not really meaning it.

"It's washable." Addison is smiling at the dog.

"By me," Derek reminds her.

She doesn't answer, busy scratching Doc behind his perked ears.

He studies her for a moment, her still flushed cheeks; even in his shirt that's large on her he can see the way the pregnancy has changed her body. He barely touched her before, in bed, when the excitement of the moment overtook them – but he can still feel the phantom warmth of her skin tingling against his palms, the hard bump of her belly and the softness of the breasts he never touched. He didn't need to touch them to feel the change in her. Those brief moments of contact ...

They were electric.

They were dangerous.

They were anything but _boring_ , the adjective they threw at those pitiful attempts to reestablish their sexual connection months before. There was no sex this morning, nothing close by any standards except that those stolen moments – a few kisses, the warmth of the skin on her hip through silky fabric – were enough to turn him into a teenager again, in practically painful need of more.

Now, though, isn't the time for _more._

And he gets that.

(He may have to re-teach his body that fact, but he does get it. Intellectually, he gets it.)

So he trains his eyes away from the lines of her body when she bends down to hand Doc a stick and then she stand up, brushes her hair out of her eyes, and says his name.

"Derek – before, when I stayed in the hospital overnight …."

Her voice trails off; he nods.

"You said someone fed and walked Doc. While you stayed over. You … meant Meredith, right?"

He just nods again.

"But you're still using – "

"Yes. But it was late," he explains. After eleven years of marriage, logistical shorthand is a way of life. Addison knows the dog walker the vet recommended as well as he does.

"I thought it would be easier if Meredith went," he continues. "She knows how to find the trailer, she knows Doc …." He pauses. "Do you – "

Addison shakes her head before he can complete the question; still, she answers. "No. No, of course not, it's good. Doc, uh, he must have been happy to see her."

"She said he was pretty subdued, actually. But he got what he needed, and I was able to stay at the hospital." _With you_ , he doesn't add. _After you lost it._

"Yeah." She turns away to offer Doc another stick, her long hair hiding her face. "That was nice of her."

..

They've left precious little time for breakfast but heaven forbid their son not get the morning meal he's insisted on since the day she passed out at the hospital.

Derek rolls up his sleeves, gets her more decaf and brews regular, offers her a cereal box she hasn't seen in years.

"Special K? Really? Where did this even come from?"

He frowns. "I thought you liked this kind. Didn't you used to eat?"

"I did, Derek. I ate it in the nineties when everyone else was eating it. I didn't even know they still made it."

"Well, they do," he says and she realizes he must have bought it. "You don't have to eat it." He looks vaguely embarrassed, and she feels bad.

"No, I want it," she lies – it tastes like cardboard, just as she remembers, though, and it makes her smile remembering how Savvy used to call it _diet frosted flakes_ and complain that it didn't even work.

… probably because it required several bowls to get full and generous lacings of something sweet to be edible.

The memory skids out of her mind with a sound like slamming brakes, reminding her of her age. And all the other things from that era she and Savvy shared that now she'd like to put behind her:

 _One. Step Aerobics._ She and Savvy took several classes together and just the memory of their high ponytails and brightly colored exercise gear is enough to drive her to drink.

 _Two. Sobriety._ See above. This was a misguided month of quasi-healthy decisions and she vowed never to do it again. Pregnancy, obviously, didn't count.

 _Three. President Clinton._ Screw politics, she's talking about the night – not a sober one – of the second presidential debate, when Savvy fanned herself so hard with the New York Times that Weiss threatened to vote Republican and when Derek asked her to confirm this was _just a Savvy thing_ she responded by telling him not to worry, "Bill" seemed too loyal to be interested in her. There's a few winces in that memory.

 _Four. Shoulder Pads._ She hit the residency interview circuit the same year Savvy was courting Wall Street law firms … when the 90s were budding out of the colorful wilted stems of the 80s. It always takes a few years into any new decade for fashion to catch up and their interview suits, in retrospect, made them both look like a vaguely slutty linebackers. She did get her first choice spot and so did Savvy, but it's unclear whether it was because of or in spite of their suits.

 _Five. Car Phones_. So seemingly high tech, so very low tech, probably the genesis of Savvy's distrust of her phone-related driving.

 _Six. Earth-Toned Lipstick._ See number four.

 _Seven. White-tinted sheer stockings._ See number six.

It's enough to make her smile – almost – especially when Derek takes the bowl away, seeing she's not eating, and she ends up with some of his muesli instead. It tastes better than she remembers.

"You like breakfast now," Derek says, sounding amused.

"I don't. It's your son's fault."

"He's your son too," Derek reminds her.

She takes a minute for it all to sink in – sharing him like this.

Then she sits back, resting a hand on her bump and smiling. "Not at breakfast, he's not."

..

She didn't mean to leave so much behind in the trailer – Hansel and Gretl bread crumbs, except it wasn't on purpose. But she's relieved there's enough for her to shower and dress without having to go back to the hotel.

They give each other room to get ready for work, keeping a respectful distance that's helping settle her nerve endings – well, mostly helping, except for watching his shoulders from behind when he shrugs into an undershirt.

But she's only human.

When she's wearing a blouse cut loosely enough to flatter her bump and her hair is smooth, she takes a minute on the porch.

He passes her, not realizing she's paused, and when he turns back with keys to the jeep in hand she's still standing there, looking out at the lake.

It's not raining – it's misty out, the air still morning-cool and delicate, and she's breathing in the clean green air.

"Addie?"

She turns, realizing he's waiting for her.

"It's, um, it's a nice day, that's all," she says, a little defensive, when he seems to expect an explanation.

He doesn't answer, just opens the door for her and waits for her to put on her seatbelt. She's looking out the window again, at the small silver trailer with its two porch chairs. They sat there, drinking beer together, and she offered to _wait for it to pass._

Almost unconsciously, her hand comes to rest on her bump again.

Their baby was conceived here.

She took a long time saying goodbye to Doc before they left, rubbing his muzzle and scratching his ears and reminding him what a good boy he is. He's probably in the window now watching them and the thought makes her swallow hard.

"… what?" she says, realizing Derek hasn't started driving yet.,

"Nothing. You're basically admitting it, though." Derek lowers his sunglasses to look at her appraisingly.

"Admitting what?"

"You missed it." He throws the jeep into gear, shooting her a quick grin before she can ask _missed what_. "You missed the trailer. You missed the woods."

She takes her time smoothing her hair.

"I wouldn't say that I missed the trailer. I did miss Doc," she admits.

"You missed the trailer. And the woods."

"Because I said the weather was nice?"

He just looks at her.

"I may have missed the _outdoors_ ," she says finally, with dignity. " _May_ have. And only a little."

He smiles at her. "That's all I'm saying."

..

Derek glances at her a few times during the drive – she's quiet, so quiet he thinks she might be dozing.

His memory is filled with the sensation of their son's kicks. He felt it, right there against his palm – proof of life. It doesn't matter how many surgeries he's performed, how many actual medical miracles he's studied or seen.

This, the growing life inside her they created together?

There's nothing more miraculous than that.

If she's distracted by it, overwhelmed – he can't blame her. He has to stop himself from asking her, every time he sees her moving, whether she's felt something else.

She promised him, so many times, that she'd call him when she felt anything. That she'd have him paged, let him drive over to her hotel room, whatever it was. She knew how much he wanted to feel it himself.

And then when it finally happened, she didn't have to call him, because he was there.

The _rightness_ of that fills him up. He didn't want to miss it. He doesn't want to miss anything else. He doesn't want to miss _her_ and when he parks at the hospital and they haven't exchanged any words about what comes next, he turns to her.

He's not sure what he's going to say – something about how _just tonight, okay?_ can't possibly work in the long run – but she rests a hand on his wrist before he can speak.

It's her left. He sees the moment she sees he's looking at her fourth finger.

 _It's about the rings._

"Addie," he says quietly.

"No … wait." She increases the pressure on his wrist. Her face looks sad, but set, and he swallows hard. "I miss you," she says softly, and it's so far from what he expected that she must see the surprise in his eyes.

"Addie."

"Wait," she says again, quietly. "Derek, I miss you … and I'm not saying this to make you feel guilty or feel … anything, I'm just telling you. I miss you and I'm … worried." She looks up at him, tears in her eyes, one hand resting on her bump. His heart skips a beat. "No, it's nothing new, just – everything."

The scan.

His heart.

He knows.

"I'm just saying this because – I wanted it to be more nights than just last night." Her cheeks are flushed, but she doesn't look away. "I miss you, Derek, but I can't move back in with you, not yet, because we'll be right back where we started."

He studies her face.

"I know you want to be there for the baby," she says tentatively.

 _It's more than that._

He doesn't say it out loud because he can see the preemptive hurt in her eyes. He can hear the angry words he threw at her that day. They're seared in his memory and he knows he's not alone.

 _He's the only reason I don't regret it. The only reason._

"I'm sorry," he says quietly.

"I know you are," she says. "I am too. And I'm not angry with you, it's not about that." She draws an audible breath. "I need you to choose me," she says.

He's confused. "I did."

Has she really forgotten? She flew to Seattle, handed him papers, offered him options, and he chose her. Didn't he?

"No." Addison shakes her head. "You stayed with me, Derek. That's different."

He tilts his head, just listening.

"It's different. I need you to choose me," she repeats, "really choose me, and if you can't, that's okay. I can be alone." Her lips tremble but she pushes them into an almost believable smile. "I'm not saying that's what I want but I actually think I can do it." Her voice shakes but he knows her strength and he knows she's right.

 _You have to choose me._

"So … it's a test?" he asks.

"Not a test."

Neither of them speaks for a moment.

"It's hard. It's so – it could be so easy." Addison looks out the window – he's not sure at what; he's not even sure she's really talking to him. "Being with you is easy."

 _Then do it._

He doesn't say that.

He says _okay_ when she asks him tremulously if he'll think about what she said.

He says _you're right_ when she points out the time.

He says _okay_ again when she says they should go inside, get to work.

She closes the car door behind her and he locks it, sealing up the morning after _just tonight._

And that's that.

..

They both have busy days scheduled today; they part ways inside the lobby with the friendly-civil-professional tone they've been using at work since she moved out, knowing they probably won't see much of each other.

Alone, though, she is still with him. Her words are haunting him as he pages through a chart, as he questions a resident, as he scrubs in for a surgery.

 _I need you to choose me._

It was hard in the moment not to fight back, to remind her she has no idea the conflict, even torment, he went through when she walked back into his life.

 _You stayed with me, but you didn't choose me._

If it's not a test – and that's what she said – then what is it?

He'll have to figure that out.

In the meantime, he's strengthened in his decision to summon Nancy. Whatever is going to happen between them, whatever is still unknown, she doesn't deserve to be alone right now. Not while she's worried about their son.

 _I need you to choose me._

She is nearly twenty weeks pregnant with their child.

His time to learn what _choose me_ means won't be infinite.

He has to figure it out.

Quickly.

..

"Haven't seen you much today."

She whirls around from the nurses' station to see Mark standing behind her with an insolent grin. It's been nonstop for her all morning and most of the afternoon, she's still a little raw from the last twenty-four hours with Derek, and she's in no mood for this.

"Hey … don't move so fast." He holds up both hands placatingly. "You don't want to disturb him." He points at her midsection and she feels anger swelling within her. He doesn't get to talk about their baby.

"Shut up."

"Now what did I do?"

"What did you – " She stops talking. "No. I'm not doing this with you. If you're really not going back to New York, fine, but just stay away from me."

"That's not very friendly of you."

"We're not friends, Mark. Haven't you noticed?"

"We used to be friends."

He actually sounds … hurt, and she finds herself feeling guilty. She's a sucker, is what she is. A pregnant one, full of hormones.

"Mark," she says, trying to calm her tone a little bit.

"Anyway, who says I came here for you?"

"What?" She's nonplussed.

"Maybe I came here to see Derek. He and I have been friends a lot longer than you and I have."

She's aware … but that didn't stop him from sleeping with her, did it?

"What's your point?"

"My point is – don't flatter yourself." He grins again before she can process the insult. "Where is Derek, anyway? Shouldn't you be picking out cribs or carriages together or something?"

The dig is too close to the onesie he once bought for her, the baby he claimed to be mourning, and she has to take a second before she can respond.

"He's working, Mark," she says once she's caught her breath. "Derek and I, we work here. This hospital isn't just a playground for you to … get revenge."

He frowns. "That's a little dramatic."

She decides not to point out the irony of being called _dramatic_ by the man who pretty much designed an entire telenovela around his grand paternity-questioning entrance to Seattle.

"I work here too," he says when she doesn't respond. "And you could be a little friendlier to your new colleague."

Ugh. Maybe this is fair punishment for her, seeing Mark every day and having to face her poor judgment, like the time she got so drunk sophomore year after a narrow victory at the Harvard-Yale game that she slept with a smarmy freshman who was at least six inches shorter than she was and wore unironic pocket squares – and then he popped up in her nineteenth century literature class after Christmas and she had to spend the whole spring semester feet away from him, constantly reminded of her mistake.

"We're colleagues, fine." She stands up to her full height – unfortunately Mark, unlike the long-ago freshman, still towers over her. "We're colleagues, Mark. Nothing more."

He gestures toward the middle of her body. "Clearly."

She molds her hands around bump, feeling protective, and with it feeling a stab of guilt for Mark's expression.

"Remind me again when the prodigal son is due?" he asks casually.

Then the guilt leaves, and she's flooded with anger – except that tears are pricking her eyes and she makes excuses, shoving past him because of course he's in her space. All she can think about as she storms off is that Mark would probably love to know about the news they received about their son.

He doesn't deserve to know.

He doesn't deserve to gloat.

She's so busy stomping, and trying not to cry, that she stalks right into someone's path before she can stop herself.

"Whoa, where's the fire?" Callie Torres has a hand on her arm as she catches her balance. "You okay?"

"I'm fine." She straightens her white coat.

"Okay. Good." Torres – no, Callie, they're on first name basis now, she reminds herself – studies her for a moment. "You're not, like, one of those pregnant women who power walks so she doesn't gain too much baby weight, right?"

… she really isn't, to her sister-in-law's chagrin.

"Definitely not."

"Good," Callie says again, then pauses, shifting a little. "Hey, uh, Dr. Shepherd – "

"Addison."

"Right. Addison. You're a vagina doctor, right?"

"You … could say that." She tilts her head. "Do you need a consult?"

"No. Well, yes, but no." Callie gestures her around the corner and she follows, curious. "I have a … question."

"About a patient?"

"About a George."

"A George?" Addison looks at the other woman's embarrassed expression. "O'Malley. George O'Malley. You mean your husband?"

"You … could say that."

Addison senses not to press further about her characterization of the marriage, but Callie still seems to have a question. "Is there something wrong?"

"His father died."

"I know. I'm so sorry." Addison gives her a sympathetic look, then has an idea. "Is he worried about his internship? Is that why – "

"His – oh, no. That's not it." Callie winces. "It's not him. It's me. I mean, it's what he's doing to me."

Addison's face must register her confusion, because Callie sighs.

"My vagina. I think he broke my vagina."

"Your vagina," Addison repeats.

"What's left of it." Callie winces again. "He wants sex. He wants it all the time. Am I walking funny? Because I think I'm walking funny. Like – sideways. Am I even standing up right now?"

"You're standing up right now." Addison pauses. "This is only since his father died?"

Callie nods. "I know it's like a – grief thing. A grieving thing. I need a break, though. I need a serious break before my vagina actually breaks and before you get all gyno and tell me vaginas can't break, you have no idea what he's been doing to it."

She can guess, but she has no desire to do that either. "Do you want me to examine you?" she asks gently.

"No! No." Callie shakes her head vigorously. "Nooooo. No. Well, maybe, if the – no. Definitely not. It's more like I want to tell him I have an official vagina doctor prescription for skipping sex."

"From me, you mean. Of course. You want me to write you an actual prescription?"

"No. Well, yes."

"Consider it done." Addison lowers her glasses. "Other than that, is everything – okay?"

Callie seems to consider this. "I think grief makes people weird."

"I think you're right."

Addison accepts gracious thanks from the resident, which she brushes off, and then watches her walk away, tilting her head slightly. Vaginas may not be breakable, but there's no denying her gait suggests –

"I know why _I'm_ watching her walk away," Mark says from behind her, an obvious leer in his unseen face, "but I'm not sure why you are. Anything you want to tell me? I'm all ears."

Anger bubbles up within her. She was actually trying to get away from him when she ran into Callie Torres, only to hear about George O'Malley taking out his grief on her … vagina. And now Mark is back.

A protective hand on her bump, she turns around with what she hopes is an expression as disgusted as she feels.

"Hey, I'm open-minded." Mark grins at her. "I can handle it. You and that resident, huh?"

"Shut up, Mark," she says for the second time that day.

"Not a bad choice at all." He gives her an appraising look. "Does Derek know about this? Or are you going to let him find out the old-fashioned way, like you did the last time?"

Her cheeks flush hotly.

 _Don't let him get to you._

She tries to remind herself that he doesn't know the scare she got, he's not doing anything other than – being Mark, in her space, making everything difficult.

"While we're on the topic," and he leans down a little as if he's about to whisper something confidential, "Derek's little girlfriend isn't too bad either."

Her stomach turns.

"Dr. Sloan," a smooth voice floats between them before she's forced to respond. "I hope I'm not interrupting."

Barely hiding her sigh of relief, Addison shoots Preston Burke a grateful look; his face is so impassive it's hard to tell whether he notices.

"Burke," Mark acknowledges the other doctor, barely, with a nod. "You need something?"

"Actually, I was hoping to speak with Dr. Shepherd. If you don't mind."

His tone is one of exaggerated politeness, but Preston can be so borderline unctuous that Mark clearly doesn't know how to take it.

Which is good.

Mark seems torn, looking between them, perhaps thinking about the chief's race, and finally ambles off, tossing one last look at Addison over his shoulder.

Addison exhales deeply once he's gone, then turns to her colleague. "Thank you, Preston."

"You're welcome, Addison."

She wonders suddenly if she misread the situation. Maybe it was just good timing. "Were you … did you actually want to speak with me?"

"I'm always happy to speak with you," he says warmly, and she knows her first impression was right.

Her throat feels tight. There's no reason for him to be nice to her, but he always has been. And he's not even trying to sleep with her.

"Are you all right, Addison?"

"I am." She draws a slightly shaky breath and does her best to smile at him. "There's just – a lot going on these days."

He nods sympathetically. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

She's about to shake her head when she remembers his specialty. "Actually … if you have a minute?"

"I have a minute," he says. His eyes are gentle, and she takes a chance. They never said it was a secret.

"Have you had much experience with fetal VSDs?"

..

Derek checks the time as he finishes scrubbing out. Nancy should be here within a few hours, if the original flight time she emailed him is what she ended up taking. She was somewhat vague about her arrangements, but then again he hasn't been that easily contacted today, so it's probably not her fault. He's aware that Nancy's husband, whose job in finance takes him on several quarterly trips to Asia each year, has frequent flier miles to spare. And then some. In his recollection, the adult Nancy has never had to select a second choice flight.

So that gives him some time to prepare – he hasn't said anything to Addison.

Which is – fine. He hasn't seen her all day.

And it's not dishonest. It's – selective honesty, because he doesn't want his wife to think that he's more worried about their baby than he said he was. Or, and this is closer to the truth, that he's more worried about her than she thinks he is.

 _Just for tonight,_ that's what they agreed in the trailer, but the fetal echo is arriving quickly and he's uncomfortable with the idea of Addison's facing it alone.

 _I need you to choose me._

It's fairly simple, really. Riding on the high of feeling their child's first movements, Addison will be distracted – even comforted – by Nancy's presence. She might not be Derek's first handholding choice, but he knows how close his wife and sister are. And then they have the fetal echo.

And they'll get through it. And he'll figure out what she needs from him. And everything will be all right. It's that simple.

It has to be.

..

Preston's office is tastefully decorated but impersonal and it's the blankness that makes it oddly comforting. She's not sure she could stare smiling familial faces during this discussion, and she doesn't have to. Preston is knowledgeable and professional, which is good because it keeps the tears at bay. Talking to a colleague about a medical question? She can handle that.

She's thanking him on her way out when she feels slightly embarrassed at the one-sidedness of their conversation, and tells him so.

He just smiles.

"How have _you_ been?" she asks pointedly, with one hand on the doorknob. "Anything, um, anything new in your life?" It's not like Preston has ever shared anything personal with her before this, and she doesn't expect him to do so now.

"Well, you could say so. I'm engaged."

"Oh!"

… yeah, she didn't expect that. And Preston is dating –

"Yang," she breathes. "I mean, uh, Cristina."

He nods.

"Congratulations, Preston."

"Thank you, Addison."

And that's that. She's on her way back to deal with patient paperwork, one hand absentmindedly caressing the space where their baby is growing as she reminds herself to offer Cristina Yang her best wishes the next time she sees her.

..

"I haven't seen you much today."

She turns around at the familiar voice, marveling at how different such similar words sound coming from her husband than they did earlier from his former best friend.

"Richard's fault," she says lightly, indicating the board with a nod of her head. "You've been pretty tied up."

"I have."

She doesn't ask if the procedure was successful; she's known him far too long for that to be necessary. It's been years since she needed any cue more specific than the set of his shoulders to determine his surgical outcomes.

"Congratulations."

"Thank you." He smiles briefly at her. "What about you?"

He doesn't have to finish the sentence: she knows what he's asking.

"Uneventful. The good kind," she adds, smiling a little at the familiarity of their dance. Her day has been long, but its contours, for her line of work, have been calm.

"Good." Derek pauses. "Did you have lunch?"

"Oh, just a couple of cigarettes." She can't resist and at the expression on his face laughs a little. "Come on, Derek, you make it so easy."

His face changes, and he tilts his head in that familiar posture like he's planning what to say to her next. "Addison – "

"I had lunch," she interrupts, feeling compelled for some reason to speak, "which means the baby did too. And I, uh, I felt him again." She tells him the last part almost shyly, but it's worth it when his face lights up.

"You did?"

"Yeah." She reaches for his hand without thinking, drawing it to her bump. "Right – there."

He holds her in that spot with an expression of concentration.

"He might be sleeping now."

Derek nods, but doesn't move his hand. Maybe he doesn't realize he's still touching her.

"What about dinner?" he asks abruptly, apparently noticing the position of his hand before he removes it.

"I haven't had dinner yet," she responds, confused. "It's barely five."

"I know that." He glances at his watch like he's waiting for something, but when she prods him he says it's nothing. He has patients to check on – of course he does – and she barely has time to suggest they touch base before they part ways for the night and he's gone.

He does drop a kiss on her cheek before he leaves, quick and chaste enough that it may have been meant for their new _we need space_ relationship but habitual and comfortable enough that it might have been the _eleven years of marriage_ one.

She's not going to cry about it – that's her new motto – so she rests a hand on the spot where their child is growing.

 _Everything's going to be okay, baby._

It has to be.

..

He's distracted as he checks on another patient. He'd been torn about whether to tell Addison Nancy was coming and, in her perceptive way, she clearly knew something was wrong. They can have whole conversations in silent, curious looks and he left before it could get too lengthy.

Meanwhile, it would be nice if his sister would let him know her plan.

But she doesn't, presumably still in the air, and when Addison catches up to him on the skyway an hour later he's startled into another internal conflict about whether to tell her.

"Did you know already?"

"Know what?" he asks, hoping he doesn't sound guilty.

"About Preston and Cristina Yang – I just said." Addison frowns at him. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he says quickly. "And yes, I think I heard something about them. Getting married, you mean, right?"

She nods.

"Why do you ask?"

"No reason." She tucks her hair behind her ears. "Are you staying late tonight?"

 _I hope not._

"I have another patient I'd like to check on." He glances at her. "What about you?"

"I'm wrapping up soon. I'm, uh, I'm a little tired." She looks rueful, and he actually feels his hand rising to touch her before he stuffs it in the pocket of his white coat.

 _Maybe this is what she meant. This is why we need space. This is what "too easy" looks like._

He's about to ask her about Preston Burke – aware she stopped short of telling him why they were speaking – when a familiar voice catches both of their attention at the same time.

They cross to the edge of the skybridge together, Derek bracing the post in front of her without thinking about it, to see, standing in the lobby in very high heels and a sleek travel bag.

"Nancy!" Addison calls down to her. She turns back to Derek, eyes wide. "Nancy's here? Did you know she was coming?"

All he can do is choke out a sort of confused denial, and then she's catching his sleeve to direct them both down to the lobby – the stairs, apparently, but he redirects them to the elevator.

"Addie. You look _amazing_." Nancy strides up to them with her arms out. "Turn to the side," she orders.

"I must look huge," Addison says nervously.

Nancy shakes her head. "You look wonderful. Pregnancy suits you. Especially … "

Derek watches awkwardly as his sister's gaze lands noticeably on his wife's ampler than usual cleavage.

"I'm sure my brother is very happy."

" _Nancy_." Derek shakes his head, annoyed but still pleased at happy Addison is to see her.

Indeed, Addison is fairly beaming. "What are you doing here?"

The two women embrace while Nancy glares meaningfully at her brother: _you didn't tell her?_ And Derek gives her his best semi sheepish expression that he's aware doesn't quite work as well on women he's related to. Not the ones who used to dress him up in tutus anyway.

"Nance?" Addison has both hands on her shoulders now. "Is everything okay?"

"Everything's fine." Nancy manages not to glare at Derek. "I just – "

Out of Addison's view, Derek points emphatically at the ID badge on his white coat.

"… have a consult," Nancy interprets smoothly.

"Here?"

"No." Derek is relieved Nancy's answer was so quick– a lie in this case would be easily disproven – but now his sister is looking expectantly at him. He hasn't put together a cover story.

Addison nods, looking curious. "Where is it?" she asks.

"Where is it," Nancy repeats. "My consult. My consult is in ... ."

She shoots Derek a dark look and quickly, he makes the sign of the cross.

" … in church," Nancy says and he grimaces, clearing his throat

"Didn't you say your consult was at Calvary, Nancy?" he prompts when both women look over at him.

"Yes, Calvary, of course." Nancy waves a dismissive hand with its large, glittering rings. "Slipped my mind. Must be the jet lag. _Anyway._ " She turns her gaze to Addison, clearly attempting to forestall questions – not the kind of thing that would normally work on his wife, but Nancy raises an eyebrow. "Aren't you happy to see me, Addie?"

"I'm very happy to see you." Addison looks like she has more questions, but a passing resident flags her down first. "Excuse me," and then she's a few steps away and Derek leads his sister another few to get out of earshot.

"In church. In church? Really?" he asks.

"It's not my fault you're a terrible mime," Nancy says grumpily. "It's _Calvary_ , Derek. You should have been _carrying_ the cross. … which you've been known to do, so it shouldn't be so hard."

How can his sister segue so smoothly into insulting him? He shakes his head, reminding himself she's here as a favor to him.

Addison interrupts to tell them she needs to go check on a patient, promising to return as quickly as she can and smiling at both of them before she leaves.

"She's happy to see you," Derek says as they watch her walk away.

"I'm happy to see her too." Nancy props her hands on her hips, hoisting her expensive-looking bag higher first.

"Thank you for coming. I appreciate it, Nancy. I really do."

"It's fine. I'll stay through the scan. I'm staying near the hospital – I figured you and Addison would want your privacy," she says, perhaps misreading his expression, "and I'm not sure how big your place is anyway."

 _It's very small. And it currently only has one human occupant._

"A hotel is good."

"Good." Nancy nods at him, then lowers her voice. "How's she doing?"

He's not sure how to answer that. Nancy knows about the scan. She knows about the uncertainty. He thinks of the way they left the OB's office yesterday, their night and then the morning together in the trailer.

"She's okay."

Nancy studies his face, and then her expression softens. "Good," she says again, but she sounds much more fond of him this time.

Derek, in spite of himself, starts feeling some measure of relief.

Things are going to work out. Nancy is here and she'll accompany them to the scan. Addison will share the current state of their relationship or not – he had thought she might have – and then Addison will have the support he can't give her right now. Not when having space is important to her.

"Thank you, Nancy," he says again, quietly.

"I've been a pregnant OB. It's hard." Nancy studies his face. "I wanted to be here."

He nods.

"And listen, don't thank me too much, not yet, because it was a little tricky to come here on short notice."

"What do you – "

"Mommy! The vending machine didn't have the good snacks." A little dark haired blur crosses the linoleum then stops to beam up at him. "Uncle Derek!"

He leans down to scoop her up out of sheer habit – not that he's not happy to see her, but it's been a while since he's been _Uncle Derek_. Not much has changed, he realizes ruefully when he feels the thud on his upper back he recognizes as the particular pain of being hugged by one of his sister's Judy-doll-loving daughters.

"Where's Aunt Addie?"

That hasn't changed, either. Their nieces are very attached to his wife; it's not like the younger version of himself could blame them.

"She's working. She'll be back."

"Okay." Claire leans back in his arms now, smiling happily, and brandishes the doll that stabbed his scapula. "It's Stewardess Judy, see? For coming on the plane with us."

Nancy looks fondly at her daughter. "I did tell her it's _Flight Attendant_ now, but apparently the Judy Doll conglomerate is behind the times."

"You don't say." Quickly, Derek feigns admiration for the doll his niece has thrust expectantly toward his face. With her gravity-defying proportions, cartoonishly enormous eyes, and little rubber feet in permanent high heel position – not to mention her miniskirted _flight attendant uniform_ – behind the times seems like an understatement.

"She's _so_ pretty, right?" Claire continues, beaming.

"Yes," Derek says automatically, adding, "and she seems very smart," at Nancy's glare.

Claire turns her attention to her mother. "I didn't get my snack," she says, her quavering tone suggesting she's been cruelly denied nutrition. Claire is Nancy's youngest, her little face still childishly round, and she doesn't look particularly starving. Still, she wriggles back around to Derek. "Uncle Derek … I didn't get my snack," she repeats.

"Well, we can't have that." He sets his niece on her feet, tweaking one of her dark pigtails, and then checks his watch before he addresses his sister. "Look, I have a post-op patient I need to check on, but if you want to take her to the cafeteria, I can meet you afterwards."

Claire looks at her mother. "But, Mommy, what about – "

"It's fine, honey, don't worry about it," Nancy tells her quickly, then leans toward Derek to speak for his benefit only. "I was planning to come alone," she says in a confidential tone, "but John apparently can't manage all five children by himself."

 _By himself_ , in his experience with Nancy, means along with significant household help.

"Both nannies are there, of course," she says as if she's read his mind. "But I suppose it takes away too much time from managing his clients' portfolios to deal with the little ones."

"So you brought Claire."

His niece glances up at her name – she's been stepping carefully from one linoleum square to the other with her little feet, clutching her Judy doll in one hand. He finds himself smiling – he's missed his sisters' children.

"Apparently three children is John's limit." Nancy rolls her eyes.

 _Three._

"Mommy!" Another voice bellows, and another pair of little feet skitters across the linoleum. "We didn't get our snack."

"I heard." Nancy lifts a manicured finger to her lips. "We keep our voices down in the hospital, Lillian."

Maybe it's the fact that his niece's long hair is in the kind of eye wateringly tight braids he's seen his sister inflict on all her daughters, but her eyebrows are lifted. She looks like she's about to protest her mother's critique, but then seems to change her mind when she sees what Claire is holding. "That's _my_ Judy doll!"

"No, it's mine!" Claire shouts in return.

"Indoor voices, both of you," Nancy hisses, shooting Derek an apologetic look and grabbing Lillian's arm just before she can snatch the doll away from her sister. "Lilly, the two of you have the same doll, remember?"

"But _mine_ has the nice hair." Lilly points an accusatory finger. "Claire took mine!"

The little suspect, meanwhile, has taken a step back from her sister and is clinging to the Judy doll, looking somewhat victorious now that her sister is restrained.

Nancy uses her free hand to massage her temples, and Derek gets the sense it was a very long flight.

How could it not be, wrangling two small children on her own?

… which she did for him. At his request.

"I owe you," he mutters to his sister as Lilly, unsuccessful at detaching her arm from her mother's grip, dissolves into tears and then Claire, apparently feeling guilty, thrusts the doll toward her sister and starts crying too.

"Mm. I appreciate that, Derek." Nancy lifts an eyebrow. "But you might want to hold off."

He's about to assure her he's not intimidated by his nieces' behavior – he and Addison had a tradition of taking the older children skating at Rockefeller Center every Christmas, and as his sisters added more and more children who were old enough to skate, it became more chaotic until finally- well, that's another story.

The point is, he'll take a little sisterly arguing to have his own sister here. He's about to tell her that, and thank her one more time, when a familiar stern voice interrupts them.

" _Girls._ Didn't your mother tell you to use your church voices?"

Nancy clears her throat, her cheeks coloring. "We usually say 'indoor voices,'" she says weakly while Derek just stares.

Both nieces, eyes wide, pause their crying.

"That's better." The newest visitor nods approvingly. "Now. I found your snack." She bustles in her purse and holds up a hand when both girls start clamoring. " _First_ apologize to each other," she directs.

"Sorry," Claire says quickly, her eyes glued to the bag of what looks like fresh bakery cookies.

"Sorry," Lilly echoes.

"Good girls. Now you sit right there – " she directs them toward a padded bench a few feet away – "with your snack while the grownups talk. Church voices, remember," she adds.

Then, looking satisfied, she brushes cookie crumbs from her hands and turns back to Derek – who's still trying to figure out what she's doing here.

Her face softening into a broad grin as she holds out her arms.

"Congratulations, son," she says as he stoops to embrace her. It's hard to believe his mother used to tower over him. She smells the same as he remembers: like a combination of baby powder and licorice.

"Thanks, Mom," he says quietly.

Nancy gives him a nervous smile over his mother's shoulder.

"Now." His mother pats his arm draws back with her normal busy-mom-of-five-children bustle that's as familiar to him as her face. "Where's Addie? I'd like to say hello to my newest grandchild."

… before he has a chance to warn her that his mother's here? Not likely.

"Addie's, uh, she's with a patient."

Carolyn raises her eyebrows. "She's still working, then."

"She's not even twenty weeks, Mom." Nancy can't seem to help interrupting. "And you're the one who's always saying women should stay busy."

"You young people with your _weeks._ " Their mother shakes her head. "We always counted pregnancy in months."

"Four months, then," Nancy says. "She's not going to stop working now."

"I'm sure she knows what's best," Carolyn says generously. "She seemed to be progressing so quickly, and I just know there's so much to do for a first baby. I've knitted some things, but I have some questions, so it will be easier to finish once I've seen the nursery." She gives Derek a brisk nod. "I know Addie's busy with work, honey, so it may make sense for me to help with the setup."

Help … with the setup … he's still processing her surprise arrival, not how to respond.

" _And_ I told Nancy I don't need a fancy hotel room," his mother continues, as Nancy makes a face just out of her line of vision. "I'm happy to stay with the two of you."

Derek blinks, then clears his throat.

"Mom." Nancy raises her eyebrows at their mother. "Derek and Addison need their privacy. Remember, we talked about this?"

Their mother looks about as thrilled with Nancy's tone as he'd expect, but there's no time to worry about that now: Derek's just heard the telltale clacking of heels in the distance … which means that they have mere seconds before his wife sees Nancy's unexpected stowaways.

* * *

 _To be continued next Sunday. I have to admit, I love the image of Nancy bringing her daughters and her mother on this trip - she did kind of hint at it last time, but she'd better have a good explanation too. We'll see in the next chapter. I'm also shamelessly amused by the whole Judy Doll thing from Season 2 and it's one of my favorite random bits of canon to sprinkle around. Shoutout to Season 15 (15!) of Grey's for finally naming Nancy's husband. So with apologies to Don, Eric, Mason, Steve, and I'm sure some others I've named over the years, John it is for this story._

 _... yeah, all this is to say I'm excited about the next few chapters. Seattle is now very, very Shepherd-y._

 _Thank you so much for reading, as always, and I hope you'll review and let me know what you thought. I love writing this story but I also have tired fingers, occasional writer's block, and not enough coffee (does anyone?), so I run on your reviews to keep me honest with the Sunday updates. You are great readers and I appreciate you and I will see you back here next Sunday for Chapter 27!_


	27. Both Ways

**A/N: Happy QPQ Sunday! It's still Sunday in not just Seattle, but Chicago and Denver too. So, um, that should count for something? I know I'm under the wire here. You had such great responses to the last chapter that I wanted to make sure you got the next one today, so here it is. When we left the gang, Addison was just about to return to the surprise extra Shepherd visitors ...**

 **I hope you enjoy the chapter!**

* * *

 ** _Both Ways_**

 _Gestational Age: Nineteen weeks, four days … and a half_ _  
_ _Baby is the Size of: an heirloom tomato (per yet another baby book, but a little less tasty in a cocktail than the previous books' pomegranate)_ _  
_ _Baby's Mother is: realizing she semi-accidentally gave baby's father an ultimatum  
Baby's Father is: confusingly kind, confusingly confusing  
But Most Importantly, Baby: moved!  
Babies Kicks are: incredible  
Shepherd Count in Seattle: medium-high  
Shepherd Terror Level: still a nice warm beige, for now  
_..

"Aunt Addie!"

Addison has about half a second of shock to take in the scene – her mother-in-law, in the flesh, in her hospital – _what the actual hell –_ and then two very familiar little brunettes are hurtling toward her, beaming.

"Girls – _girls_ ," Nancy intercedes when it becomes clear they'd like to jump up into their aunt's arms as they always have. Their aunt who was in a slightly different physical condition the last time they saw her. Derek, who has been sheepishly avoiding her gaze, doesn't seem to trust her much either, resting a hand on her elbow to keep her upright.

Fine … no lifts.

"I can't believe you're here!" Addison holds out both hands in lieu of her arms, shocked to see them.

Lilly and Claire are grinning, not too put off by the new limitations. They bounce on their tiptoes in front of her, and then she leans down carefully – Derek keeping a hand on her back – to kiss one round little freckled face and then the other. They hug her legs once she's standing up again.

"Did we surprise you?" Lilly asks, as Claire chatters by her side.

"You certainly did." Addison touches her cheek, brushing a few stray cookie crumbs as she does so. "A wonderful surprise."

… and a confusing one. Nancy came on a consult, and brought her two youngest?

 _Sorry_ , Nancy mouths when Addison glances at her, with a slightly self-conscious shrug. "John had to work," she adds.

... and brought her mother too. For childcare purposes, she assumes. Except ... it's Nancy's mother.

Her mother, who is Derek's mother, who is Addison's mother-in-law.

Which is fine, and … not at all terrifying.

She draws a long, deep breath. Carolyn Shepherd, looking no worse for the wear after what must have been a tiring cross-country flight with two tireless little girls, is looking right at her.

"Hi, Mom," she says carefully, not quite sure what to expect.

"Addie," she says, and holds out her arms.

Still a little shocked, she accepts the embrace. She hasn't seen her mother-in-law since before everything that happened in New York, and there's a swirl of anxiety in her stomach as she anticipates facing her now. At least in the hug there's no having to look in her eyes.

When Carolyn starts to step back, Addison finds herself mentally preparing. Derek's mother is dressed in her typical practical separates – not too wrinkled from the plane, one of the benefits of synthetics. Her mother-in-law is holding her away now, a hand on either of her arms.

"Addie," she repeats, her gaze now tracking up and down her body. "You look … ."

"Huge," Addison interrupts nervously, glancing down at her obvious bump. "I know."

" … I was going to say you look beautiful."

Addison stares.

"You're glowing," Carolyn continues, a fond note in her voice. "I knew you would be."

There are tears in her mother-in-law's eyes and Addison realizes, feeling a lump in her own throat, that Carol is actually excited to see her pregnant.

She doesn't hate her for what she did to Derek. Or if she does – she's distracted by the baby. But there's genuine happiness in her expression, and now Addison feels her own eyes filling with tears.

 _Hormones._

She shouldn't be that shocked – Carolyn has been supportive of her, in her way, over the years. Critical, too, but … supportive. Wasn't she so excited when Addison landed her first choice fellowship that she cooked her favorite dinner that Sunday – salad? Yes, the lettuce was iceberg and the viscous dressing came from a bottle, and they washed it all down with a casserole. But still, the sentiment was there.

For a silent moment she and her mother-in-law just look at each other, and Addison remembers every comment that she used to find sweet and eventually grating, even hurtful: _you're so good with children. You're such a natural with babies. Of course here you are holding the baby. Look at you, Addie, you're a natural._

Addison swallows hard. She's not going to cry, not right here in the hospital hallway.

"Aunt Addie, is there really a baby in your uterus?"

Claire's question interrupts the emotional moment … thankfully. Except she's not in much better shape looking into her niece's sweet, trusting little face. Carolyn, for her part, clears her throat, managing to say without words what she thinks of her granddaughter's medical terminology.

 _At least she didn't say fetus._

Addison smiles down at her niece. "There really is."

"Yeah, a _big_ one," Claire says happily, gazing at her bump, and it's too cute to offend her even as she sees Nancy flinch in her peripheral vision. She pulls on her aunts' hands happily, Derek frowning slightly at her side.

"Careful," he reminds her quietly when she glances up at him, and she nods. She doesn't lift Claire, just smiles down at her and her niece pats her belly affectionately ... thankfully with none of her mother's reaction to pregnancy weight gain.

"It's a boy." Now Lilly is peering up at her too. "Right? Mommy said it's a boy."

"It's a boy," Addison confirms. She can't help the little frisson of wonder that runs through her every time their son is discussed like this. As a … reality. And she can tell without looking that Derek, whose hand has drifted back to her waist, is reacting the same way.

"Oh." Lilly's disappointed expression is Nancy in miniature, rounded version. Then she brightens. "Can you have a girl next time?"

Nancy raises an eyebrow, looking amused, then rests a hand on top of her daughter's head. "One baby at a time, Lil."

Lilly looks a little disappointed, but doesn't push it. Addison is the one to clear her throat now, moving past the weighty moments with her mother-in-law. "So, um, where are you staying?"

Nancy's gaze darts to her mother. "Not far from here. John's service set it up. Somewhere he has points."

"And room service," Claire pipes up.

Carolyn looks disapproving. "I said I would have been happy just to stay with the two of you instead of spending all that money."

"It's not money, Mom, it's points." Nancy looks like this isn't the first time they've had this conversation, turning toward Derek for help and then, when none is forthcoming, raising an eyebrow. "Would you rather we stay with you?"

"A hotel is a great idea," Derek says quickly, while Addison busies herself straightening the ID badge on her white coat. "Our place here is, uh, it's small."

"Your father and I lived in a tiny place when Lizzie was born," Carolyn says, now sounding approving.

 _Not this tiny._

Lilly interjects before they can argue more about the cost of lodging in Seattle, starting to tell Addison about her most recent soccer victory. Predictably, Claire joins in and Addison's head is soon moving back and forth in a manner more reminiscent of tennis. She's missed Nancy's girls.

She's missed a lot of things.

"Addie."

She pauses, promising she'll hear the rest of the story soon, and joins Derek and Nancy in conversation about what comes next.

"I know you need to finish up here," Carolyn says, managing not to look too much like she thinks Addison is too enormous to work anywhere, much less in a hospital.

"We do." Derek glances at Addison. "But then – "

"Dinner," Nancy suggests.

"All of us," Carolyn agrees, sounding satisfied.

It's three hours later on the east coast, Addison realizes, reminded when Claire – as if on cue – tugs at her mother's hem with a whimper.

"I'm not sure how long these two are going to last," Nancy admits, as Claire leans tiredly against her legs. "Or how long I would last with them in a restaurant."

"We can have breakfast," Addison suggests, but Lilly grabs her hand with dismay at waiting that long to reconvene.

Nancy suggests their hotel: "There's lots of room. We can put the girls to bed – _after_ dinner," she adds reassuringly when both Lilly and Claire start to protest – "and have a chance to catch up."

Addison and Derek exchange a glance; she gets the sense he's waiting for her to okay it. "That's a good idea," she says tentatively.

"You're coming to our hotel," Lilly confirms happily, now holding both her aunt's hands.

Claire, catching on, leaves her mother's side to join her sister. "Can you sleep over?"

The next glance Addison and Derek exchange is a little different.

"Honey, I don't think – "

"Uncle Derek too," Lilly says, and Addison can't help but be amused and a little touched at the addition.

"Aunt Addie and Uncle Derek have their own house to sleep in," Carolyn tells her granddaughters.

… _something like that._

"Please," Lilly begs, Claire joining in the chorus. Nancy's expression is apologetic, and she's mid-intercession when Claire tips her little face up to her aunt.

" _Please?_ You missed the Christmas sleepover," she points out.

Addison's will to resist melts at that. Claire's disappointed expression goes straight to her heart. Addison's spent every Christmas of the girls' lives with them: reading stories at night in their flannel holiday pajamas, drinking peppermint hot chocolate, letting them brush out and braid her long hair by the fireplace, watching them open their presents, building snowmen when the weather cooperated. She and Derek have always slept at his mother's for Christmas, since long before Lilly and Claire were born, fixtures in the lives of their nieces and nephews.

This is the first Christmas they missed.

They were in Seattle, and Christmas was … pretty terrible.

But she focused, then, on how miserable she was, on the guilt and regret souring her troubled marriage. She forgot all the people they left behind.

She and Derek exchange a glance and his eyes tell her all she needs to know: he doesn't have the heart to resist either.

"If there's really enough room," Addison says hesitantly, as the girls – who know a victory when they smell one – start jumping up and down with delight, their former exhaustion forgotten.

"There are only three bedrooms," Carolyn offers, perhaps the only time Addison has heard her use the term _only_ to describe what she'd normally think was an embarrassing excess of rooms.

"I can share with girls, Mom," Nancy says, then smirks. "I mean, if you're okay with Derek and Addison sharing a bedroom."

Nancy and Addison share an amused glance. Carolyn strictly enforced separate beds for years, even after the Christmas when they were in medical school and Liz's husband accidentally set off the smoke detector, revealing in the mêlée of evacuation a very _not_ separate Addison and Derek.

Carolyn looks less amused, but Nancy can't seem to help continuing: "I mean, they _have_ been married eleven years and Addie is already pregnant, so I'm not sure what they can get up to in there – "

" _Nancy_ ," Carolyn hisses. "The children."

Lilly and Claire look up with interest.

"We know Aunt Addie is pregnant," Lilly says.

"Of course you do," Carolyn says.

"And I know how ladies get pregnant too," Lilly continues conversationally.

Addison freezes, but Carolyn smiles at her granddaughter. "That's right, sweetheart. When God sees a nice, _married_ couple who want a baby, He sends an angel – "

"No, Grandma," Lilly cuts her off impatiently, "what happens is that boys have a special thing called a - "

"Lillian." It's Nancy's turn to interrupt. "Grandma knows where babies come from, sweetheart. She had five of them."

Lilly frowns. "But she said – "

"I heard." Nancy sighs, then raises her eyes heavenward – either to communicate her exhaustion or to remind whatever angel is up there that she's not interested in a sixth baby. Then she glances at Addison. "I think this is our cue. We'll take the girls to the hotel, and you'll come meet us there when you can. Yes?"

Addison and Derek, without much choice, just nod.

"We're staying at the Archfield," Nancy says casually. "Girls – " She separates Claire from Addison with some difficulty, assuring her she'll see her aunt very soon.

"Drive carefully," Carolyn says, pausing to give Addison one more fond once-over, focusing on her bump. "You're carrying high, aren't you, dear? Definitely a boy."

Addison just smiles weakly. What's she going to say?

"And," Carolyn leans closer for the last part, "it looks like you'll have an _excellent_ milk supply."

"Mom." Derek grimaces.

"That's a good thing!"

And then Nancy is ushering her away, pulling the girls with them, but not so quickly that they can't hear Carolyn continuing to defend herself: "It's not like she's gained weight everywhere, but you know what they say: _locomotive or caboose._ "

Derek makes a sound like a cough – oh, it had better be a cough and not a snicker – and then she looks at him and she can't help laughing a little herself.

"What just happened?" he asks.

"Honestly? I have no idea."

..

A sleepover.

In a hotel suite.

With her sort of estranged but also reconciled but now somewhat estranged again husband, who is also the father of her unborn son. And his sister, who knows some of the truth about the complicated history that's led to their estrangement. And two of their nieces, who know, at the very least, the facts of life and the location of the uterus. And her mother-in-law, who has to hate her at least a little bit for hurting her son, but also seems excited about her newest grandchild. Oh – and who has no idea what actually happened between her adored son, her adored sort-of son, and her … less than adored daughter-in-law.

"Addie?"

"No, this is great. It's a great idea," she repeats mechanically as she and Derek part ways at the elevator. "It's fine." She pauses. "You'll call the dog-sitter."

"I'll call the dog-sitter."

They've had the same exchange three times since getting on the elevator. She pauses. "You think he'll be okay?"

"Doc?" Derek nods.

Unspoken: _we might not be._

But his expression is somehow reassuring, anyway.

"I'll call the dog-sitter," he says, firmly, before she can ask again, and it stops seeming like such a crazy idea.

..

It's a crazy idea.

He's not so far gone he can't see it, but he also wasn't fast enough to get them out of it, either. How could he? He saw the look on Addison's face when the girls were begging her, and when Claire pointed out she'd missed Christmas?

 _Christmas._ It's a sensitive point for the two of them. The less he thinks about their Christmas in Seattle, such as it was, the better.

He knew, once Claire brought up Christmas, that all hope was lost. He wasn't getting out of the sleepover.

And what's the alternative, really? Letting his mother find out that he's living in a trailer, that Addison isn't living with him, letting her find out why?

He didn't invite Nancy here for this.

He doesn't want to be angry, not when his sister uprooted her life to come out for this visit, but he invited Nancy here to make things easier. He pictured her taking Addison to dinner or facials or whatever other girly things they did together that his mother definitely wouldn't approve. Spending time with her one on one to support her, catching up with her, being there in the ways Derek himself can't right now.

So … here they are.

And all he has to do is call the dog-sitter.

..

She's not crazy about leaving Doc for the night. _Derek_ leaving Doc, to be clear. She doesn't live there, not right now, not anymore. But still, she doesn't want Doc to be alone. To the point she almost suggested that Derek go back to the trailer and leave her to a solo sleepover with Nancy and company – but that didn't make sense either.

It's a joint invitation and they're a … joint, too. AddisonAndDerek. DerekAndAddison. DerekAndAddie, if his mother is the one talking about them. Heaven forbid her only son didn't get the prime spot.

And then she feels guilty, because her mother-in-law was genuinely happy for her, about the pregnancy. It was obvious. Fine, a little judgmental of her weight gain, too, but that's to be expected, especially after a cross-country flight with Nancy. She didn't seem to be holding a grudge about what Addison did to her son.

That's the thing, with her mother-in-law. It's … complicated. They're complicated. On the surface, they have nothing in common.

Nothing.

Their differences?

Too high to count … but she can try, in generalities, at least. Let's just say their tastes tend to differ.

 **One.** _Taste in Food._ She'll start with the easy one, spurred on by the memory of the fellowship celebration with the bottled ranch-or-whatever. Carolyn was a traditionalist and believed in things like meat and potatoes and far too much cabbage and casseroles in those pieces of white crockery with stamped-on flowers like the ones at the Whitney's Americana exhibition. It's not that she eschewed vegetables, not completely, but anything raw and green is generally treated as either a garnish or an example of the vanity of the modern woman. Addison isn't exactly Nancy, but she appreciates a nice plate of greens ... especially the way it leaves extra room for her preferred nutritional source, which brings her to number two.

 **Two.** _Taste in Drink._ Her mother-in-law isn't a teetotaler. She kept beer around. Cans of it. For the men – sons and sons-in-law – and for the women? … beer. Cans of it. Addison was no more likely to drink a can of beer than to pump a red plastic cup of grain alcohol. It was, as far as she was concerned, twenty years too late for either of those things. She preferred wine, which she dutifully brought to family occasions despite Carolyn's initial disdain. Cue a montage of all the bottles of wine over all the years, with nothing changing at that entry hall exchange other than her hairstyle and the wrinkles next to eyes.

 **Three.** _Taste in Women._ Okay, that one sounds inaccurately salacious. It's not like they were tossing back shots at Rubyfruit together. It was more her mother-in-law's seemingly innocent, yet somehow pointed, comments about _other_ people's wives. Whether it was one of her nephews or a friend from church, it always seemed to come down to how nice it was when nice boys married nice girls who did things like cook nice meals and give them nice babies. With the utmost self-control she managed never to tell her mother in law that _her_ son liked Addison perfectly well for – and not in spite of – the very _not nice_ things she was wont to do to him.

 **Four.** _Taste in Taste._ That is to say – her mother-in-law judged the hell out of Addison's money. Which makes her wrinkle her nose just to say it, because talking about _money_ … like, that actual _word_ , even! It's just not done, except that she learned later that it's only _just not done_ if you have enough of it never to worry about it. Fine. She gets that. But she didn't ask to be born into her family, such as it was, didn't ask to be born at all. She never touched her trust fund; all it did was sit around getting bigger and fatter, much like her mother-in-law apparently thinks she's been doing in Seattle. It's never felt fair to blame her for what's essentially her ancestors' wealth, but Carolyn would probably just raise her eyebrows, cluck her tongue, and make some comment about Addison's shoes. Which leads her to …

 **Five.** _Taste in Clothes._ And the subcategory: accessories. It's not even the clothing so much as the price point. Well, and the clothing itself too, fine. Her mother in law adhered to leisure in whatever the actual pieces were – comfortable sweaters, comfortable blouses, comfortable … _housecoats._ She took great pride in paying as little as possible while maintaining her ex-military sense of order and neatness. She's been known to buy cheap or used clothing with weak hems and re-stitch them all herself with the same plastic foot-pedal sewing machine she knows has been around since the kids were small.

 **Six.** _Taste in Faith._ This one's pretty hard to ignore: her mother-in-law is a semi-devout Catholic who attended regular mass and stayed involved with the church and its charity functions. She sent her children to Sunday School. She said grace before meals. She actually, like … prayed. Addison? Well. She's a WASP. And the _P_ might as well stand for "please, like we ever go to church." Other than Christmas, she never did, growing up. And the extent of her prayers, as an adult, would be the occasional _Jesus Christ!_ at terrible drivers on the Long Island Expressway when it's her turn at the wheel en route to the Hamptons. And even then it's less a plea for a higher power to save her than it is a suggestion that even Jesus himself (Himself?) would be shocked at the lousy driving she just witnessed.

 **Seven.** _Taste in Family Planning._ See number six, but this one was a particular sticking point. She can't expect a woman with five children spanning more than a decade and a half to be a major proponent of birth control – but it was always more than that. It always seemed to be more of an interpreted conflict between Addison's career and her empty uterus. Or, worse, Addison's empty uterus and Addison's uterus-free husband. Carolyn never came right out and said _why won't you give my son a baby_ – but she never shied away from hinting at it and some of their most unpleasant arguments about _timing_ and _readiness_ could probably be tracked at least loosely to this phenomenon.

… and she could probably go on, but hey: generalities.

Does she sound ungrateful?

Like she's not aware that the same Carolyn Shepherd who muttered under her breath about wastefulness and the Depression when Addison failed to eat 1200 calories of casserole in one sitting – also brought a bouquet of wildflowers for Addison to their medical school graduation? She had three of them, wrapped in plain brown butcher paper and tied with grosgrain that she knew after four years with Derek Carolyn kept in a shoebox in the hall closet, replenished after every Christmas. She was reducing, reusing, and recycling before it was fashionable. Three bouquets: one for Derek, one for Mark, and one for Addison.

… since her parents didn't even show up, it was a pretty nice gesture.

Carolyn who was too conservative to let Addison and Derek share a bed under her roof before they were married – even when they were engaged – but still never blinked at including Addison in whatever holiday family photos were being snapped.

Carolyn who clucked over Addison's expensive taste in clothes, but still knitted her a new Christmas sweater every _other_ year on her traditional rotation system. She saved them all – eight, in total. The first one was white. Then Kelly green, and then her memory of the order goes hazy, just that one of them bright red and Derek teased her that it matched her hair _and_ her cheeks. Secretly, Addison was relieved the Christmas they missed was in an off year. She hated the idea that Carolyn would have knitted her a sweater and – or would it be worse if she hadn't knitted it?

The point is … she gets it. It's not simple, of course it's not. Derek brought her home with him the first Christmas they were dating, and she doesn't want to admit how old she is by admitting the year.

1989.

It was 1989. Seventeen years ago. She's spent six years now delivering babies born in the 21st century – which is enough to make her dizzy with the realization of how old she's become.

1989: she still had feathery bangs and the remnants of those oh-so-fashionable wings on her hair that were supposed to make her look breezy and beachy or whatever but in retrospect, and in the pictures her now mother-in-law kept from those times, really makes her look more like she was electrocuted in lackluster fashion by a particularly lazy bolt of lightning.

The _point_ is that she and her mother-in-law disagree on many things.

Their tastes could never be said to mesh. Not much at all.

Except for one thing.

One very, very important thing.

Derek.

They both loved Derek. _Love_ , present tense, although the idea makes her blush and so she focuses on their relationship before Seattle. But the one point of agreement that never forked was how much both of them loved Carolyn's son.

(And Carolyn's daughters, and all fourteen of her grandchildren, several of whom Addison delivered herself.)

But mainly … Derek. Maybe that's part of why she's been so worried about her mother-in-law's reaction. Their shared love for Derek was stronger than her disapproval of Addison's high heels or lack of cooking skills or non-affinity for cheap beer. How could her betraying him do anything but make her mother-in-law hate her?

Yet … it doesn't seem to have done that.

She mulls this over as she reviews a resident's notes on her chart. _Why_ hasn't it done that?

Briefly, she wonders if her mother-in-law somehow knows that despite all that's happened, all they've done to each other and all the water under the bridge … that she still loves Derek.

 _I just know I still love you._

That hasn't changed. And maybe it's more obvious than she ever realized.

… that, or maybe Carolyn's waiting for the hotel dinner-sleepover-what-the-hell-was-she-thinking to tell her what a horrible bitch of a daughter-in-law she is.

..

"Did I hear you say Doc?"

Derek holds up a finger, gesturing for her to wait, and then quickly finishes the call. Pocketing his blackberry, he leans against the rail of the skyway before turning to respond.

"I did say Doc." He pauses at her expression. "I was talking to the dog-sitter. It's nothing serious."

"Oh." Meredith looks at him for a moment. "Okay. So … Doc's okay?"

It's a complicated question, though, isn't it?

"He's hanging in there," Derek says finally.

She looks at him for a long moment. "When I went out there to feed and walk him, the other night – "

"Thank you for doing that," he says automatically, but she waves a hand.

"It's fine. I wanted to help." She pauses. "Did you tell Addison? That I fed him, I mean."

Slowly, he nods.

"Good." She pauses; there's a conflicted expression in her eyes. She looks like she's gathering steam to ask him something, and then: "Did you leave her?" she asks quietly.

He's taken aback. "What do you mean?"

"Everyone heard you." Meredith looks down at the chart in her hand before returning her gaze to his face. "That day, in the on-call room."

"I'm not proud of that," he admits. "It was – emotions were high."

He hears the distance in his own voice. _Take responsibility, Shepherd._

"What is it?" he asks when she continues to look at him.

"Nothing, it's just – " she starts to turn away, then turns back. "You said she lied to you."

"Yes, I did." He pauses, not sure whether to continue. "And yes, she did."

"About Mark," Meredith prompts.

He's not sure how much detail he's comfortable with here; then again, he's aware he wasn't exactly keeping it under wraps that day in the call room. Didn't both Mark and Addison warn him how audible their argument was?

"She … wasn't honest with me," he says finally.

Meredith is just _looking_ at him, and he pauses.

"What?" he asks, curious in spite of himself.

"You weren't honest with me," Meredith says, her voice quiet. "You lied to me."

He blinks. "That's different."

She doesn't break eye contact. "Why is it different?"

"I wasn't married to you, for starters," he says automatically.

"No, you weren't." Meredith tilts her head, looking at him. "You were married to Addison, but you didn't tell me that. You let me believe you were available."

"I was available," he insists. "When I met you, I thought I was. Addison and I, we were separated."

"Separated." She studies his face. "See, the thing about your separation, Derek … you knew it, and Addison knew it, but I didn't know that."

He's been unfair to her. He knows this.

It's still hard not to feel cornered by her unexpected comments.

"Meredith," he says quietly.

"You just expected me to forgive you," she continues as if he never spoke at all. "You just expected me to stay with you anyway, if you chose me. Didn't you?"

 _Yes._ But he doesn't indicate outwardly that he agrees; she seems to hear it anyway.

She looks away for long moments before she speaks again.

"I wanted to be right about you."

"Excuse me?"

"You. I wanted to be right about you." Meredith gives him an appraising look. "When you left me, when you chose Addison? You hurt me."

He swallows. "I know that," he says quietly.

"I had to put myself back together." She looks down for a moment, then back at him. "But I thought at least I was right about you. If you chose Addison, if you went back to her, really tried to work on your marriage, then at least I was right."

"Right about – "

"That you're you." She sighs a little. "The kind of guy who tries to work on his marriage."

Oh.

"And if I _was_ right about you," Meredith continues, "then maybe that means … ." She tucks a long strand of hair behind her ear; it's escaped from her messy ponytail. "… that I actually have decent taste."

He smiles before he can stop himself.

"It's not funny." She's smiling a little, too. "Seriously," she adds, and he stops smiling. "Because then all the boys and all the bars and the obvious daddy issues wouldn't matter so much – if I knew that I could actually pick a good guy when it came down to it."

He just listens.

"I don't know if I was right, now," she admits.

He's not smiling anymore. "Why do you – "

"You left her."

He's confused.

"She's pregnant and you left her."

"Where did you hear that?"

She blinks. "Mark told me," she admits. "He said you kicked her out. That she's living in a hotel now."

"No." He shakes his head, ignoring the latter, accurate part of the sentence. "That's not – no. You shouldn't listen to Mark."

"Funny," but she doesn't sound like it's funny at all, "he says the same thing about you."

He's suddenly sorry she's tangled up in this at all. And guilty that he hasn't given much thought to it, not lately. Not with everything else that's been going on.

Nor to how Mark strutting around the halls of the hospital – to his chagrin and Addison's – might affect Meredith too.

"Forget it," she says, and he gives up on the idea of defending himself.

He's silent for a moment, not sure what to say.

Meredith looks exhausted. He can recall his own intern year from her drawn face, her stooped shoulders. Except that he's partly to blame. Her posture looks so defeated that he finds himself resting a hand on one of her small shoulders, automatically. He's expecting her to push him off, but she doesn't. It's the first time he realizes how completely the air has changed between them. There's sadness, and even a little history, but the electricity that captured him that first night feels like ancient history. There's no more charge.

It's a relief.

To him, anyway, and he would imagine to her as well – except that when she looks up at him, there are tears in her eyes. Maybe about him, maybe not, but she never finds out because Meredith's expression changes, and he turns around just in time to see Addison standing feet away, staring at them.

..

"Wait. Addison, _wait._ " He catches up to her. "It's not what you think."

"Fine." She doesn't make eye contact but her posture doesn't look particularly thrilled with him.

"Look, would you just – " He reaches for her arm and starts to guide her down the hall.

"No, Derek. You're not trapping me in an on-call room again."

The accusation stings, but he's wise enough not to point out that she's the one who ushered him into the room the day Mark showed up. He knows it's no excuse.

"Fine. We can talk tonight … at our sleepover."

She looks like she's fighting a smile, which was his admittedly somewhat unfair intent.

"That's not fair," she says.

He can't exactly argue.

"Addie …"

"Forget it." She pushes her hair behind her ears. "It doesn't matter. You're perfectly free to talk to anyone."

"I wasn't doing anything."

"I didn't say you were."

"Okay, then." He studies her face for a moment. What was it, then? Just seeing them together? Of course Addison wasn't privy to his thoughts during that moment. She's looking at him now, her expression one of ... disappointment.

He sighs. "Addison."

"Derek." She props a hand on her hip. "Let's just go. Your family's waiting."

 _Your_ family, she said. But they're hers too.

And she's his.

..

They end up in her office. He doesn't take _let's just go_ for an answer and she doesn't push it. She's tired, is the thing, it's been one long shaky breath since the nerve-wracking first anatomy scan. A part of her just wants to be annoyed, to be huffy, to be anything else but sad at the reminder – thanks to the Shepherd influx from the east coast, and that flashback glimpse of Derek and Meredith on the skyway – of how much things have changed.

"Addie."

She looks up. His eyes are ... understanding. Which is, in a way, harder.

"It's okay," she says. "It's just – I wasn't expecting them."

He nods, not needing to ask which _them_ she means. "They're – a lot."

And this is only a small fraction of them.

He's looking at her. "What you saw," he begins, and she flinches out of pure habit. "Meredith was ... upset."

Oh. She doesn't respond.

"Not about me," he adds. "About Doc. Well, partly about Doc and partly about – " He pauses. "Apparently Mark has been saying things to her."

Her eyes widen. _Saying things_ , like ...

"About us," Derek clarifies. She doesn't ask which _us_. _Us_ means AddisonAndDerek, and he nods slightly to confirm it.

Great.

She lets that wash over her.

Why did Mark have to fly out here and, more importantly, why did he have to stay?

"Well ... I do think she can hold her own," Addison says tentatively. "Meredith can, I mean. I get the sense she's pretty tough."

"Mark is an ass." Derek's tone is emotionless.

 _Well, that goes without saying._

"I know." She twists her hands for a moment. She just wants things to be normal – no land mines, no ex affair partners, no off limit subjects. There's more to be said, and asked, but she just pauses to breathe.

Here they are in her office, where a lifetime ago when her pregnancy was still a secret, she fell asleep on her desk and woke to his touch. And didn't tell him. They were living together then, nominally working on their marriage, but there was painful silence between them.

Now, they're living apart, the status of their marriage uncertain, but somehow the air has been feeling clearer.

As clear as the movement she suddenly feels within her, reaching for her husband's hand before she can even speak to make sure he has a chance to experience it too.

"He's awake," Derek says, grinning at her.

"He is." Their hands are folded together over her bump, waiting.

"… and now he's asleep," Derek predicts.

"All that kicking," she muses, "it must be tiring."

There's a moment where they just smile at each other, not needing words for the mix of sheer relief and heart-pounding excitement that they can finally feel his movements. He's bigger every day. _Realer_ every day.

And he's going to be okay.

He has to be.

She lowers her head to where her hand rests on her belly, then winces at the strain on her neck, and across her shoulders.

Derek is frowning when she looks up.

"Sore?"

She makes a rueful face at him. He doesn't remind her that he warned her about lifting their nieces, and she doesn't remind him that she didn't – just leaned down to talk to them, let them pull at her hands, stooped over to hug them … and loved every minute of it.

He just looks at her for a moment, then gestures for her to turn around.

"What about – " she glances at her watch, trying not to wince at the angle, not wanting to make the family wait.

"We have time," he says.

"Well … you don't have to," she tries next, a little embarrassed.

"I know I don't." He gestures again, and this time she turns.

She can't help letting a little sigh escape when his warm hand slips under the collar of her shirt. It's the gentles of pressure at first, but she can feel the effects of his fingers deep in the tightness of her muscles.

"You're pretty good at this," she admits after a few minutes of this.

It's an understatement, she's practically slack-jawed from his ministrations. But … it will do.

He looks amused at her response.

"You remember the first – "

"Of course I do," she says before he can finish.

They exchange a wordless smile, sufficient to confirm they're recalling the same event.

Two first-year medical students, studying together, surrounded by painstakingly handwritten notes and textbooks, half empty paper cups of coffee.

"You said my shoulders were tense," Addison recalls.

"They were."

"Yeah, well, looking back … now it seems like you were actually making a move."

"I was."

She laughs a little now. "You can't have it both ways, Derek."

"And yet … I did."

What she remembers too about that first massage – though she doesn't say it – is that she was complaining about her shoulders. Saying that they were too broad, too masculine. _Man shoulders_ , that's what she called them.

And Derek said – what was it – _if you have man shoulders, then I guess I have some serious thinking to do._

She can recall exactly how she felt, at the time … amused even as a warm flush traveled the length of her neck. It was her first taste of what would characterize their relationship: this combination of wordplay and foreplay, banter that was at the same time sexually and intellectually charged. Perhaps it just went hand in hand with sleeping with your lab partner at one of the most hormonally intense periods of what's essentially late stage adolescence – all she knows is how it felt.

That it was, and always has been, the essence of the two of them together.

The two of them … and only the two of them.

She and Mark had physical chemistry – there's certainly no denying his objective attractiveness, or his skills. Before their affair, they had friendship, even warmth – and during it companionship, occasionally. Before things went bad.

But it was nothing like the simultaneous, constant, tug-of-war mind body connection she's had with Derek since the very beginning. The one that drew her back to him like a magnet across the country. The one that's practically blurring her vision right now even though there's nothing inherently sexual about it – not even sensual. It's gentle and practiced and it just might kill her because it can't be anything else … not yet.

"What?" he asks when he catches her looking.

"Nothing." She inclines her shoulder toward him; they still have a few minutes before they need to leave for the hotel. "You missed a spot," she says.

"Yeah? Well … have a little faith." His fingers skim over her shoulder. "I'll get there."

* * *

 _To be continued next Sunday and yes - I hope a tad earlier in the day. I have to say, I'm enjoying having the new Shepherds here. Things are going to move a bit faster in the next chapter, with lots of Greater Shepherd Family interaction, plus some hospital time. And, you know, there's the hotel too ... . Since Addison and Derek's Mark-related blowout was so public (as they are wont to do on the show too!), I knew it would come up again. And I've been wanting Meredith to remind Derek that even if he was more deceived by Addison than Addison was by him, his lies weren't victimless at all. To the reviewer who thanked me for being kind to Meredith - I love Meredith. Of the three of them, Derek was the one it took me longest to warm up to/empathize with, because I was so frustrated with how much he hurt both Meredith and Addison in Season 2. But at this point, I sympathize with all four members of the original triangle/quadrangle and I guess that's why I'm still up at nearly 1 a.m. writing about characters who caught my eye 14 years ago (!). All that is to say - I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and I look forward to hearing what you thought. Thank you again for reading, and see you next week!_


	28. The Second Shepherds' Play

**A/N:** I've been super busy and plagued with computer problems today but it's QPQ Sunday and time and tide and Addek wait for no (wo)man. So here I am, posting while it's still Sunday in Seattle and ... a few other places. Your reviews mean a lot and I appreciate every one of them. They keep me going on schedule. I hope you enjoy this chapter.

* * *

 _ **The Second Shepherds' Play**_

 _Gestational Age: Nineteen weeks, four days … and three quarters_ _  
_ _Baby is the Size of: an heirloom tomato (preferably on a pizza; she's starving)_ _  
_ _Baby's Extended Family is: arriving without warning  
Baby's Mother Is: totally fine with that, mostly  
Baby's Parents Are: technically separated  
But Baby's Parents Are Also: planning a sleepover  
French Farce Potential: even more than usual  
.._

At least one of the pregnancy books mentioned self-talk. Positive self-talk. So she tries it now:

 _It's not at all weird that I'm on the way to a sleepover with Derek._

Hm. Maybe it needs more detail. She scrunches slightly in the passenger seat of the jeep, trying to ignore the fact that she knows exactly what Derek is humming under his breath.

 _It's totally normal that Derek and I are heading to a hotel for a slumber party with his mom._

Is it just her, or did that actually sound _weirder_?

She sits up a little straighter now.

 _It's not going to cause total chaos just because Derek and I are –_

"Addison?"

" … yeah." She glances at her husband, hoping her face looks like someone who's been thinking about miles per gallon or centimeters of dilation instead of … positive self-talk.

"Are you sure you want to do this? We can still back out."

"No we can't." Addison sighs. "Lilly and Claire."

"I know, but – we can tell them we were paged. They understand. Or – Nancy will understand."

It's too close to something she fears and hasn't really brought up, this idea of the girls _understanding_ , so she just shakes her head.

"I don't want to disappoint them."

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure."

She gives him her most convincing smile – hopefully – and sits back a little as they pull into the Archfield parking lot.

She has a tote with clean scrubs her sleep and a spare outfit for the next day. She has a husband who's willing to sleep in a hotel with his sort of estranged wife to keep two little girls happy. She has _positive self talk_ , damn it, and everything is going to be fine.

..

Here are some things that could go wrong.

(Not that the sleepover isn't a great idea, _positive self talk_ and all that, but still.)

In no particular order.

 **One.** _Derek's mother could find out that Addison isn't quite as innocent as she thinks._ This one looks loaded, but then Carolyn has been so kind to her since her arrival. Kind mixed in with passive-aggressive, sure, but that's her mother-in-law's brand of affection. She's been positively _forgiving_ and Addison's leery of what could happen if she found out that what she thinks she knows about the affair might not be all there is.

 **Two.** _Nancy could let slip the baby's condition._ She's texted with her, even though there hasn't been much chance to speak with her in person since her arrival. She's grateful for the coincidental timing of her consult, but she still doesn't want Carolyn to know. There's no need to worry her – or to open up the door for blame for Addison, either. Her mother-in-law is sympathetic to difficult pregnancies, but also convinced that high heels cause cancer. So … there's that.

 **Three.** _Carolyn might have packed a suitcase of pregnancy muumuus._ If only this were a joke.

 **Four.** _Carolyn might make her try on said muumuus._ As maternity fashion shows go, it's not really her bag. Her mother-in-law knows perfectly well Addison would take being a pregnant whore over wearing a glorified gunny sack, and she'll accept all the judgment too. At nearly twenty weeks pregnant, with a shape she's never imagined for herself, she's earned the right to be selfish. Hasn't she?

 **Five.** _Carolyn might figure out how selfish she is._ Fine, this one _is_ in a particular order. But it's that sad little girl part of her she'd like to shut up once and for all, the one that's afraid her mother-in-law will figure out how terribly she's behaved. Not just about the affair. About – so many things. The months before the baby came. The truths she kept from Derek.

 **Six.** _She might not be able to drink even half a cup of coffee without judgment._ This one is pretty easily solvable, because at this point in the pregnancy she will slap silly anyone who gets in her way.

 **Seven.** _Derek might be uncomfortable sharing a bed with her … and a room._ Self-explanatory. Yes, they spent the night in the trailer, but it was awkward. There were … near misses. And that wasn't good. They're taking space, and that takes effort.

 **Eight.** _Derek might be too comfortable sharing a bed with her._ Enough said.

 **Nine.** _Nancy might have packed some of her maternity dresses, which are about the size Pregnancy Judy would wear._

 **Ten.** _If not muumuus, at least shapeless dresses._ And Carolyn always wants her to try things on. Always.

… see? Everything is fine. Perfectly fine.

 _Not weird._

..

"This is a little weird," Nancy admits when they're settling into the suite – it's large and opulent, or would be if he hadn't had his perspective shifted by his wife for the last eleven years. "Thank you, for indulging the girls."

"It's fine," Derek says. He's carrying their bags into the bedroom Nancy points out, Addison already having been pulled aside by an enthusiastic Lilly and Claire to show her the Judy dolls they brought with them. He can hear his wife's admiring noises from here; Addison was always excited for their nieces and nephews, whatever they were showing her: Dolls. A spelling test marked 100%. New soccer cleats. A bug.

She was always good with their nieces and nephews. Always. And it's been so long since he's resigned himself to the fact that he wasn't permitted to bring that up – it just sounds like pressure, he learned – that it's strange to think he can actually start to embrace it.

 _You'll be a wonderful mother._ His own mother said that to Addison years ago, and she blushed and accepted the compliment and later hemmed and hawed, _I'm not ready, you know I'm not ready_ , and the less he thinks about those uncomfortable moments of their marriage, the better.

What it means, for him, is shock that he's permitted to acknowledge it now.

She may not be ready and he may not be ready but her pregnancy is real – and nearly halfway finished at this point. With that comes new allowances, like listening to his nieces giggling with their adoring aunt and thinking it, uncensored, in his own voice now:

 _You'll be a wonderful mother._

..

"You sure you want a kid?" Nancy asks, sounding like she's only half joking as she pours a second glass of wine, ignoring their mother's pointed glance.

Cartons of half-eaten Chinese food – the concierge's advice on delivery for the sprawling Shepherd group – litter the large table in the living area. Lilly and Claire are currently locked in battle over a fortune cookie.

"Girls," Carolyn says, frowning at Nancy.

"It's mine," Lilly insists.

"No, _mine_ ," Claire wails, pulling hard on it and then practically falling over with what must be rather oily fingers.

"There are twelve fortune cookies here," Nancy says patiently, "which is … a rather insulting indictment of how much food we ordered, but there's no need to fight over one fortune."

The girls ignore her.

"Give it to me." Nancy holds out a hand. When neither daughter complies, she extracts it herself, to much indignant shrieking.

"Now no one gets it," Nancy says, sounding so much like their mother that Derek could almost laugh.

Claire crumples to a dramatic heap on the carpet – for all her normally sunny cheer, she is also the actress, _Girl Most Likely to Throw a Tantrum_ , as Nancy used to call her.

Lilly looks down at her for a moment, then up at their mother. "Since Claire's busy, can I have the fortune cookie?"

Nancy looks like she's not sure whether to cry or laugh. "They're tired," she tells no one in particular. "It's late back home."

"Very late," Carolyn says. "Past time for little girls to be in bed."

This earns an extra howl from Claire, who is now spread-eagled on the carpet with her dark hair fanned around her face, like a particularly anguished little snow angel.

"Up." Nancy holds out a hand. "You need a bath."

"No!"

"Can you give us our bath, Aunt Addie?" Lilly asks hopefully, taking further advantage of her sister's being indisposed. "I want to wash my Judy's hair."

"Not tonight," Nancy says. At Derek's questioning glance, she shakes her head. "I've spent the last … oh, eighteen years on my knees on a tile floor in front of bathtub," she says, "and it's even less appealing when you're pregnant." She turns to her daughters. "Aunt Addie needs to rest, and you need to go to bed. Let's get baths and then if you're very good, she can read you a story."

"Two stories," Claire barters tremulously from the floor.

"No, three!" Lilly counters.

Nancy raises her eyes heavenward. "I miss the nanny."

..

The girls are clearly exhausted from cross-country travel. Once they've been fed and bathed, they're much calmer, at least. Claire's eyes are still ringed with red when she clambers onto the couch beside Addison, wearing adorable polka-dotted summer pajamas.

"Can you read us a story now?"

"I'd love to." She exchanges a glance with Derek, who has been sitting next to her, deftly avoiding his mother's questions about nursery décor.

With Carolyn's blessing she trails Claire to the bedroom they'll be sharing with Nancy. There are two good-sized beds, and Claire climbs onto the one that already contains both Lilly and a number of soft plush animals – and some less soft Judy dolls, she realizes a little too late as one little hand pokes her somewhere rather uncomfortable.

The girls choose three books, and Addison isn't going to protest. Not when they're both clean and freshly bathed, smelling of strawberries from whatever Nancy used to wash their long damp hair. She sits between them, Lilly leaning against her arm while Claire cuddles into her side.

By the time she closes the door behind her, as quietly as she can, both girls are sleeping.

"You're a miracle worker," Nancy announces, raising her wine glass in salute as Addison rejoins the adults. "You're even better than the nanny. Do you want a job?"

"I already signed a contract," Addison says, smiling at her, "or I'd consider it."

"Seriously, though, they're monsters when they're overtired. You have a knack." Nancy looks at Derek. "Refill?"

He shakes his head.

"Do I really have to drink all this wine alone?"

"You could save some for tomorrow, dear," Carolyn offers, but Nancy wrinkles her nose.

"Not after the flight we had. Don't ask," she adds before Addison can follow up.

It's late.

Not just for the girls, but for all of them.

For all her worries, the _family_ part of the slumber party is already coming to a close, uneventfully. They sidestepped Carolyn's questions, and if she thinks they have a house with a yard and a civilized plan to bring home the baby and a … non separated relationship, well … so be it.

"I'm glad to see everything's working out here," Carolyn says quietly, taking her aside as they start to scatter to the three individual bedrooms, each on a different side of the large living area. "I was worried, Addie, when Derek ran out here and then you followed him, and now the baby … but it seems like you're happy here."

She's surprised, and grateful, and she says goodnight without realizing that everyone is going to bed, which means …

It's time to join Derek in the bedroom reserved for them.

 _Out of the frying pan, into the fire._

..

He's sitting up in bed with a medical journal open on his lap, tactfully feigning interest so he won't need to pretend not to be looking at his wife.

His _wife._

But things are different now, and he knows it. When he finally glances over, she's smiling almost shyly.

"I … think I'm going to lose the pants," she says, gesturing down to her royal blue scrub bottoms. "Is that okay?"

"Is it okay … for you to take off your pants?"

"When you say it like that …." She frowns at him. "It's warm in here. I don't usually sleep in so much, and …" Her voice trails off. "That's not much better, is it?"

He shakes his head, purposefully turning back to the journal he brought with him. He can tell from the familiar raspy sound that she's stepping out of her scrub pants. Tactfully, he doesn't look until she's under the covers.

Next to him.

And also very far.

The bed is a king, supposedly, but it seems bigger than that.

"Look, this, uh, this is … weird." Addison is turned half away from him so he can't see her expression. "But it doesn't have to be. I can, um, I can sleep on the couch."

"Don't be ridiculous." He frowns. "If anyone's sleeping on the couch – " He stops talking. "No one's sleeping on the couch," he says firmly. "This bed is the size of a football field. I think we can handle it."

She doesn't respond, but he can tell just by the set of her shoulders that she's smiling.

"It's one night," she says after a moment.

Well ... that was last night. Technically, this is one _more_ night.

"Not counting last night," she adds as if she's read his mind.

He has a brief moment where he recalls last night and his own cheeks burn and the flash of recollection of the way she felt under his hands is enough to make him think he might need that journal in his lap after all.

But it's gone as soon as it arrived, the cold splash of water unparalleled by any other:

"Your mom," she says, once again seeming to read his mind.

"Right." He clears his throat. "So don't try anything."

She smiles again. "I'll do my best," she says. She turns half on her side away from him and then he just … lies there.

He can't help but flash back to the last time they shared a bed in this hotel. It was so different. Everything was different. Her pregnancy was new and shocking, still. They were just starting to rekindle the spark between them snuffed out by the affair. And then … she shocked him again.

But they recovered.

Their whole path since he learned of her pregnancy has been staggered, one step forward or five, and two – or ten – back.

He's been married to Addison for eleven years. He grew complacent, and he regrets that now, but for years he knew what to expect. Or he thought he did, anyway. Their lives were predictably unpredictable, but now? From the moment he learned of her pregnancy, it's been one rug pulled out from under him and then the next.

The ceiling is very high, and very white, and he stares at it for long moments thinking about how far they've come, and how far is left to go.

"Derek …?"

She's propped up on her elbows, looking at him. Some of her long hair is falling forward to hide her face, and he trains his eyes away from the way the scrub top pulls across the soft contours of her torso.

 _Sorry_ , he almost says. _Sorry, I didn't mean to look._

 _I didn't mean any of it._

… not the bad parts, anyway.

But then she's taking his hand in her smaller, cooler one and placing it atop the bump where their child is growing.

"Aren't you going to say good night?" she asks softly.

..

She wakes up alone.

… in the center of the vast white hotel bed, in her scrub top and panties and with no sign of her husband other than a faint imprint in the mattress about a half mile away.

Groggily, she rubs her eyes.

What time is – oh. So he's let her sleep. Not longer than she should, not for work – he'd never do that – but their nieces and nephews wake up obscenely early, she's well aware. She's shocked the girls didn't bang on the door – having been trained out of barging in – at the very first crack of dawn.

She swings her bare legs out of bed, getting her bearings.

 _We made it._

They did. The positive self-talk worked.

They slept in the same planet-sized bed and nothing happened.

They shared Chinese food and catch-up with Derek's mother and sister and nothing untoward was revealed.

She blinks a few times, clearing her head.

 _It's not weird_ , she tries.

… nope. It's all still a little weird.

And yet – they made it.

Before she can revel in their victory too much, she hears noises from outside her door – presumably in the suite's living area. Voices – rising in excitement, then laughter, and then a very familiar shushing sound.

Smiling, she tiptoes to the door, not wanting to disturb them, and cracks it open just slightly.

She peers through the crack to see Derek sitting cross-legged on the carpeted floor of the living area, playing a board game with their nieces. She can't see which one, but can hear the plasticky scrabble of multiple game pieces … knowing the girls, pink ones.

"My turn," Claire is whispering – in her not much of a whisper _whisper_ – as Lilly bounces excitedly to her knees.

"When is Aunt Addie going to wake up?" Lilly asks in a tone that suggests it's not the first time she's asked.

"Soon," Derek says.

"Why's she so sleepy?" Claire asks with interest, kneeling up so she can rest against her uncle's shoulder.

"It's a lot of work to grow a baby." She can hear the smile in Derek's voice even though she can't see his face. "So let's let her sleep, okay?" He makes a sound indicating he's put a finger to his lips.

"I _am_ whispering," Claire insists.

Lilly counters this and then Derek is soothing – and shushing – both of them before the _clunk_ of rolled dice suggests the game is off and running again.

Addison leans her head against the door jamb another few moments, just … watching. Derek looks so comfortable playing with the girls. So natural. There's a pang, a reminder that she's the one who deprived him of fatherhood all these years even knowing he would have wanted to start earlier.

(And she's the one giving it to him now, and she knows it. It's just some days it's hard to remember that too.)

Their unborn son is still so small, but … so were Lilly and Claire. She delivered both of them and even with the countless labors and deliveries she's experienced in her career, she can vividly remember each one. Lilly arrived a week before her due date, the first of many times she'd be impatient over the years. Nancy was on her way back from a conference and by the time Addison met her at University North she was already six centimeters dilated and complaining that she'd been _this close_ to finally getting a taxicab baby. Lilly was born with a thick shock of blonde hair – the cause of her mother's heartburn, Nancy commented darkly when she cradled her newborn. (As Addison already learned, obstetrical expertise is no match for old wives' tales when it comes to some pregnant OBs.) By the time Nancy was pregnant with Claire, Lilly's newborn blonde hair had fallen out, to be replaced with a head of dark Shepherd waves. Nancy's fourth child, she was a curious and easygoing baby, happy to be bounced by any relative with a spare knee. She wasn't the baby for long, either. Claire kept things interesting by arriving sunny side up – but made up for it somewhat, in later years, with her mostly sunny personality. Nancy was understandably anxious, Addison carefully reassuring, and when the freshly delivered, barely wiped down newborn rooted for her first meal, Nancy – tough and buttoned up Nancy – cried because she knew this would be her last baby.

Addison remembers watching … wondering what it would be like.

They chose the baby's middle name in her honor. _Claire Adrianne_ , and Addison blushed when she realized it. She pretended to be embarrassed, though she was very pleased. She remembers an exhausted cab ride home, finally climbing the steps of the brownstone, only to have Derek meet her with chilled champagne. _Another one down the hatch_ , he said, and she wrinkled her nose. _So to speak_ , he added, and then she laughed and he teased her about the name and they drank champagne and he didn't mention – not even once – his annoyance with her on the subject of babies.

It was a good night.

They're good kids, Nancy's children. All of the children, really. When she thinks about how close she came to losing that entire family, the one whose growth she witnessed almost completely …

..

"It's your turn, Uncle Derek." Lilly regards him with a serious expression and he doesn't have to wonder why; he's played this game enough with his nieces and nephews over the years to know when competition is stiff.

There's a particular age for his sisters' children – when they're old enough to know when an adult is letting them win, but not old enough to pose any threat of actually winning – that he finds complicated when it comes to board games. It wouldn't be politic, after all, to –

"No, you're supposed to move _six_." Claire guides his hand. "One, two, three, four, five, _six._ " She smiles up at him. "See?"

"I do see." He gives her a weak smile in return, wondering if he should just let Lilly cheat, when luckily they're interrupted.

"Aunt Addie's awake!"

..

Addison smiles at her nieces' enthusiastic greeting.

"Aunt Addie _is_ awake," Derek confirms, smiling at her.

She smiles back as their nieces clamor around her.

"Aunt Addie is also hungry," she says, smoothing down Claire's rumpled hair. "What about you two?"

They agree vociferously.

Derek fills her in on everyone else's location: Nancy is showering after a morning workout in the hotel's gym – because of course she is. Carolyn is steaming a stain out of one of the girls' dresses, in the bathroom – because of course she is.

And Addison needs coffee.

Badly.

There's room service – but even here, it's not instant.

Through some fairly complex negotiations the girls agree to surrender their claim on her hands and her time so she can go to the lobby café to procure coffee … where she's fairly certain there's decaffeinated espresso with her name on it. She can practically taste it already.

Derek offers to come too, but she reminds him with a raised eyebrow that the children need supervision, and the girls protest losing their playmate. He relents when Addison assures him she doesn't mind and reminds Lilly, who seems determined to accompany her, that she needs to keep playing lest she lose her spot in the game.

Truthfully … it's nice to be alone.

Just for a moment, just for a breath, it's nice to be by herself.

She stands at the elevator bank, mindlessly aware of the old fashioned gold arrow moving to announce the floors, enjoying the silence.

It's so calm.

Peaceful.

Quiet.

"Addison?"

She whirls around.

" _Mark?_ "

..

"Addie seems in good spirits," Nancy observes.

His sister is standing at the counter of the kitchen area with damp hair, fixing coffee with her usual briskly efficient movements. Lilly and Claire, who were distracted only briefly by the rest of the game, have already started asking Derek when their aunt will be back.

"Girls, leave Uncle Derek alone." Nancy proffers a leather gold-embossed menu. "Here … you can pick your own breakfast."

This, plus a promise that Lilly can place the order herself too, is enough to mollify them – at least briefly.

Nancy turns to him again once her daughters are engaged. "The appointment is this afternoon?"

Derek nods.

"I assume you haven't … ."

She doesn't have to say _told Mom._ Even if he's been absent for a while, sibling shorthand still exists.

He shakes his head.

"Derek, are you mute, or just not interested in talking to me?"

Ah, there's the sister he knows. "Neither," he says calmly, glancing over at the girls. They seem occupied with the room service menu, which is almost as big as they are, pointing at various things and seeming to debate. Lilly is apparently helping Claire to sound out some of the words, which is admittedly adorable.

He turns back to her sister, whose eyebrow is raised. A challenge. "Well?" she demands.

"I just didn't expect you to bring the whole family. That's all."

"The whole family," Nancy repeats. "Derek, you haven't been out here so long you've forgotten just how many people are in the _whole family_ , have you?"

"No," he admits. "But – Mom? Really, Nancy?"

She actually looks a little embarrassed. "It was complicated," she says defensively. "With the girls, and – look, Derek, maybe you'll be the most perfect Father of the Year and I think you probably could be, actually, but you know John doesn't like handling all five of them on his own."

He does know this, with one _exception that proves the rule_ exception: his annual trek to Saratoga to bring the children to visit his mother. Derek is well aware that their week upstate is the only alone time Nancy ever gets, if only because it usually involves some hastily arranged plans on Addison's part so they can get a drink or a massage or whatever else it is they do together.

John is nice – he's fine – a man of more words than Kathleen's husband, at any rate, and his children always seemed to flock around him. Derek has no interest in hurting his sister's feelings, but yes – he'd like to think he wouldn't send his children across the country with their mother to avoid having to care for them on his own. Especially if _on his own_ meant with the help of multiple highly trained professional childrearing experts.

"What's the big deal, anyway?" Nancy frowns at him. "Mom's been dying to see Addie pregnant, and she misses you. You missed Thanksgiving – "

"I know," he says tiredly.

" – and you missed Christmas," she continues as if he never interrupted. "Is it so terrible to spend a few days with your mother?"

 _A few days._

"No," he says when it seems Nancy, who has bossy-big-sister written all over her face, is actually waiting for one.

"Good. Because Mom was really excited to have this time with you. It's hard for her, that you moved out here."

"I know," he admits, trying not to sound sullen. Nancy just has that effect on him.

"So be nice."

"I'm always nice."

"You're sometimes nice," Nancy corrects, pointing her coffee spoon in his direction. "But look, Mom just wants to … feel included in your new life. What's so bad about that?"

He doesn't respond.

"She'd love to see where you're living."

… _that's_ what's so bad about that.

..

"What are you doing – on this floor?" she asks lamely.

"It's the best floor," he says, like it's obvious.

Damn it.

Why couldn't the elevator have come faster?

"What are _you_ doing here, anyway?" Mark frowns at her; he's dressed for work and smells of the hotel soap she remembers from her time here with first Derek and then Savvy. "I thought you were staying out in nowheresville with your husband … what?" he adds, off her expression. "So I keep up with the news."

"It's not news." She hates how petulant she sounds, but it's true. It's her marriage. It's her _life._ _Not … fodder for hospital gossip._

"Not news? Try telling that to the staff at my new hospital." Mark looks amused, cementing her guess as to the origins of his information.

"it's not your hospital," she says automatically. "You're temping."

He stands a little straighter. "I'm in the running for chief."

 _Don't remind me._

"Running for chief doesn't require you to listen to hospital gossip, Mark."

Or to spread it, for that matter.

"Am I supposed to cover my ears?" Mark raises his eyebrows. "Oh, come on, Addison. You're going to blame this on me when the two of you put on a show for half the hospital?"

"Because of _you_ ," Addison reminds him. Not like she wants to think about that fight in the on-call room. "You're the one who caused it."

"Of course Derek isn't responsible for his own meltdown." Mark shakes his head. "He's too perfect. Can't go blaming it on him. Just blame it on Mark instead."

"I blame it on _Mark_ because it's your fault." Addison shoves her hair behind her ears impatiently. "You goaded him. You set it up. You wanted him to blow up and you wanted to hurt me."

"You hurt me," he counters.

"Not on purpose." She can't look in his face. "Not the way you did."

Before he can respond, she pushes sideways past him to jab the elevator button again. Where _is_ the damn thing?

As if recognizing her desperation, the elevator finally dings its arrival. As the heavy doors slide open, she glances at Mark. Is he going to try to get on the elevator with her? And then – say things? She has an unwelcome, unnerving recollection of the way he cornered her in the elevator during his first visit to Seattle.

She glances uncertainly at Mark as she steps onto the elevator.

"You go ahead without me," he says, waving a hand. "I'm waiting for Meredith."

..

"When is Aunt Addie coming back?" Lilly asks again.

"Soon, I hope." Nancy takes the phone from her and replaces it in the cradle. "Before breakfast gets here."

"But it will be _fast_ ," Claire reminds her mother, apparently having been convinced by the tone of the concierge who took the order.

"God willing," Nancy mutters, for Derek's benefit – and he's duly impressed, since he's heard his mother's recognizable and rather heavy footfalls approaching from one of the bedrooms, and they're both well aware of how she would react to Nancy's heretical comment.

Derek glances at his watch, hoping it won't set the girls off into more asking for Addison. He sensed when she left that she might want a few moments alone, and he can't exactly blame her. One minute she's impressing upon him the need for space, the next she's letting his family talk her into an impromptu sleepover. If she wants to make a leisurely trip to the lobby for espresso, he can scarcely blame her.

"She'll be back soon," Derek assures his nieces when he sees Lilly start to ask again.

..

" _What?"_

Automatically, horrified, she steps back out of the elevator. Mark is lounging against the wall, pausing to remove an invisible piece of lint from the shoulder of his dress shirt.

"You didn't," she breathes. Her stomach churns. "You couldn't."

He raises his eyebrows.

Numbly, she watches the old arrow chart the elevator's slow course down to the lobby. After all this time, she's missed it.

And her stomach churns more imagining Derek's reaction if he knew. She was _upset_ yesterday, that's what Derek said, when she saw them talking. Addison is painfully familiar with the way _upset_ can translate to letting Mark Sloan a little too close, a little too deep.

"Just … tell me you did _not_ sleep with her," she bargains.

"Why not? I'm a free agent." His smile is mostly leer. "And so's she. Doesn't seem like any of your business where she spends the night."

So it's true.

Anger courses through her.

"You just – you won't stop at anything, will you? To get at him. You don't care who you hurt. You really think this is the way to get Derek to talk to you again?"

"I don't know. You tell me." He rubs his jaw. "Derek's talking to you again, so I guess you pulled it off … but then I'm not sure getting myself pregnant is going to work as a strategy."

Her cheeks burn at the implication. "Getting _myself_ pregnant? I know you've never cared much for obstetrics, Mark, but even you can't be that clueless."

Mark's gaze drops to her hands where they rest protectively on her bump.

"I hope Meredith is smarter about birth control than you were," he says casually.

It's such a crass thing to say, so unfair on so many levels, from someone she actually, briefly – stupidly – trusted, and then she sees the expression on his face and is angry all over again. But differently this time.

"Meredith isn't here. You didn't sleep with her," she realizes.

Mark looks amused. "Not for lack of trying, though," he says, glancing at himself in the gilt-edged mirror before continuing. "She's having a really hard time getting over her last boyfriend, I guess. That seems to come up a lot for me."

Addison flinches. "She's seeing someone," she says, then kicks herself for giving Mark more ammunition.

"Yeah, the vet. I heard. Must be tough to give up screwing a guy who treats hamsters for a living, but then again, there's no accounting for taste."

She just shakes her head. He's wasted enough of her time.

"I'm taking the stairs," she says.

"Twenty-six flights?" Mark smirks. " _You_?"

Ugh. He's not wrong.

"You didn't tell me what you're doing here," Mark says suddenly, apparently switching course.

"No, I didn't." Addison punches the elevator button again, annoyed, then makes the mistake of glancing at Mark.

His expression changes – he's looking at something over her shoulder toward the hallway. Oh yeah, like she's going to fall for that again.

"Nice try," she says, but Mark doesn't seem to notice.

"Nancy?" he asks, sounding shocked.

..

"Addie's been gone for a while, hasn't she?" Derek's mother is pouring herself a cup of tea, while supervising the girls' reluctant cleanup of their board game. He can't blame her; there seem to be about 500 tiny pink pieces.

Derek is somewhat amused, though, at how much she sounds like Lilly and Claire in the moment.

 _Where's Aunt Addie?_

Funny, all these months in Seattle when he avoided her and ignored her he'd somehow forgotten what it was like to live in a world where people wanted to see her.

And not in a _paging Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd_ way, either, but just … her. Addison.

"Maybe she's getting us a present!" Claire is beaming at the mere thought of it.

… which of course sets his mother off on a gentle but transparent lecture on how the girls have Too Many Things and they Shouldn't Expect Gifts and the greatest gift of all is Spending Quality Time and of course their aunt Needs Special Consideration because she's Carrying a Tiny Blessing. He doesn't disagree in principle, he supposes, though he can't help but recognize his own younger self in his nieces glum but attentive faces.

"… nicest of all. Don't you think?"

Both girls nod vigorously, perhaps sensing it's the best way to end the lecture.

"Good." Carolyn smiles fondly at them. "Lilly, sweetheart, your hair is a mess. Why don't you let Grandma fix it for you?"

Lilly shakes her head, her rather rumpled braids swinging from side to side. "Mommy says you don't do it tight enough."

Carolyn mutters something about Nancy's idea of tight braids and – he doesn't quite catch the rest, but it doesn't sound particularly complimentary.

Claire, who is watching all of this round-eyed, leans companionably against her grandmother's legs. "I hope she brings us _cookies_ ," she sighs, and Derek can only hope this doesn't start off another lecture.

..

"Nancypants!" Mark is grinning, apparently over his shock at seeing her.

Nancy doesn't seem over it, though, exchanging a stunned look with Addison, who is busy hoping the floor will swallow her up.

"Mark?" She lets him pull her into an embrace, trying to catch Addison's eye – Addison, for her part, has decided she needs to stare intently out the window along the side of the elevator bank. "What are you doing here?"

"I work here."

"He doesn't work here," Addison can't resist countering. "He's, uh, he's temping."

"… which is work."

"Temporary work."

Mark ignores her, turning to smile at Nancy. "So we've established what I'm doing here – what are you doing here?"

"I'm – visiting."

"I thought you had a consult," Addison prompts.

Nancy looks puzzled for a second – perhaps worried she'll give away Addison's fetal concerns – then shakes her head as if to clear it. "Oh, yes! I have a consult. At, uh, Calvary."

Mark cocks his head. "So you're staying with Addison?"

"She's staying with me." Nancy looks somewhat uncertain as Addison realizes Mark's intent.

"Nancy – "

"So she doesn't live in this hotel," Mark continues.

"Of course not. Why would she live in a hotel?"

"Oh, I don't know," Mark says, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully as Addison just stands there, realizing there's nothing she can do. "Change of pace … space from the husband … ."

"What are you talking about?" Nancy frowns. "Addison and Derek are living together."

" … or, you know, just sick of living in a trailer."

Addison cringes.

"A trailer?" Nancy's posture is as appalled as her tone – she sounds like she wouldn't mind taking another shower.

But before Mark can drive the final nail into the … recreational vehicle, they're interrupted yet again, this time by multiple footfalls.

(Is it too much to hope it's just a … burglar or something?)

It is. Apparently.

"Uncle Mark!" Lilly squeals when she sees him, Claire at her heels, and as Addison makes uncomfortable eye contact with her husband, both of their nieces throw themselves at their former friend.

..

"Well, if it's isn't Peanut … and Peanut Junior." Mark grins down at the girls while Derek swallows his nausea at seeing his former best friend without preparing, not missing Addison's uncomfortable gaze and Nancy's confused one. "You're a long way from Greenwich," Mark continues.

"We _flew_ here," Claire reports, beaming. "But Daddy stayed home."

"That's too bad," Mark says, with just enough of an edge that the adults won't miss it. He's never been fond of John. "Hey." He tweaks one of Lilly's braids. "I almost didn't recognize you without your Judy dolls."

"They're in the room," Lilly explains. "But we couldn't bring all of them 'cause we didn't check any bags." She pauses, knitting her little brows together in a way that makes her look like a miniature Nancy. "How come you're here?" she asks. "Do you live here too, now?"

"Yes," Mark says.

"No," Addison corrects firmly. "Uncle Mark is just visiting," she continues before Mark can stop her. "Just like you are. When he's finished with … what he came here to do … then he'll go back to New York."

"And will you come over?" Claire asks eagerly. "You didn't come to Christmas and we had a really good snowball fight and everything."

Derek studiously avoids Mark's face. He doesn't want to see it and remember anything that's tainted, like the Shepherds' annual boys against girls snowball fight. It was deemed fair because there were so many more girls than boys, and because the prissier brothers in law like John and Corbin declined to participate.

"Yeah?" Mark sounds amused. "You win?"

"No," Claire admits. "But I hit Kyle _really_ good."

Derek clears his throat. "I hate to break up this … conversation," he says evenly, interrupted for a moment when Claire tugs on Mark's hand and begs for him to flip her upside down.

("Maybe later, kiddo," he says dispassionately in return.)

" … but my mother is waiting for you."

"Mom's here?" Mark asks, looking genuinely shocked for once.

"My mother is here, yes," Derek says, looking at Addison so he won't have to see hurt in his former best friend's face. He realizes her hands are empty. "Addie – where's your espresso?"

"I never made it downstairs," she admits.

"You're here too, Derek?" Mark's tone is outwardly jovial, with an underlying taunt to it that never bodes well. "Not much of a separation if you're both living in the same hotel."

"Mark." Addison is glaring at him.

"Separation?" Nancy looks from one of them to the other. "They're not separated, Mark. They're married."

"They're on a break."

"We're not _on a break_ ," Addison hisses, "and it's none of your business."

"It's the talk of the hospital," Mark announces.

"I wonder why – when you're such a gossip." Addison is swinging her head back and forth between glaring at Mark and throwing apologetic glances Derek's way.

"You're – on a break?" Nancy looks right at Derek.

"No," he says, relieved when Addison nods.

"But your wife is living in a hotel."

"Shut up, Mark," Derek says tiredly.

"She's just visiting me, Mark," Nancy says, clearly trying to help, but Derek finds himself wishins she'd shut up too.

"That's tonight, Nancy," Mark says, sounding very pleased with himself. "She's been in a hotel for weeks."

"Not weeks," Addison says, but Mark ignores her.

"She's probably just tired of living in a trailer," Mark says casually.

"Why do you keep talking about a trailer?" Nancy looks genuinely puzzled.

"Derek, why don't you tell her?" Mark grins at him. "I guess you weren't planning on her visiting."

"You – have a trailer? Derek?"

"Never mind," he says to Nancy, trying not to sound annoyed. It's not her fault. It's Mark's fault. "But – yes, I have a trailer."

"On your, uh – like, by your house?"

"Yes, Derek, is it _by your house_?" Mark asks innocently.

"Nancy …." Derek speaks directly to her, wondering if he can get Mark Sloan to disappear just on sheer glares alone. If so, he'd be doubly affected by both halves of _DerekAndAddison._ "I … have some land, here. We have some land," he adds, more to irritate Mark than to offer Addison her half of the community property, but he's pleasantly surprised to see that she looks pleased with his wording. "And I – we're not sure yet what we're going to do with it, so yes, we have a trailer."

"That's a lot of _we_ for the guy who ran across the country to get away from his wife," Mark says, hands shoved in his pockets now. He can pretend to be cocky all he wants; Derek knows when he's getting to him.

"But you're not separated." Nancy is facing him now, one hand on her hip, while Mark turns away from them to grant first Lilly and then Claire an upside down flip. Derek studiously avoids watching. He's in no mood for this _Uncle Mark_ routine. "Derek?" she prods.

"We're not – we're taking some space," Derek says finally when Addison just stares miserably at her shoes and doesn't answer. "Not that it's any of your business."

"You were acting together," Nancy says.

Derek isn't sure how to answer that.

"And you didn't tell me about any of this when you called to invite me out here," Nancy continues, apparently not seeing Derek's discreet throat-slashing gesture of _cut it off._

"Derek called you?" Addison pipes in, looking puzzled.

He shouldn't be surprised -even pregnant and in the world's most complicated elevator bank, Addison never misses much.

Nancy's mouth opens, but no words come out.

And then they're all speaking at once, only bits and pieces of it audible at any one tie, in seemingly disconnected questions and exclamations.

 _What about your consult?_

 _Why didn't you mention you lived in a trailer?_

 _Why would you call Nancy without telling me?_

 _Can you flip me again?_

 _Is there a consult at all?_

 _But what about –_

 _How could you –_

 _What does it –_

 _How did –_

 _Why –_

"Children. Children!"

They all turn around – every adult in the elevator bank near or past forty years old – realizing at last that they are being addressed. Silence falls over all of them, all the way down to Claire, who is mid-flip on Mark. He lowers her to the ground as they all turn to face Derek's mother.

Carolyn Shepherd is standing in the open archway of the elevator bank in housecoat and slippers that were virtually silent in the carpeted hallway. Her hands are on her hips, and it's a familiar posture. She nods once they fall silent, her expression stern. "Thank you. Now, would someone please tell me what on earth is going on here?"

* * *

 _Thank you for reading! Cheers to everyone who was like, is all this going to blow up? But seriously though, it's not a Shepherd gathering on my watch without a little healthy farce (and I couldn't resist the title, either). There are a lot of people with a lot of complicated relationships in a smallish space, so things were bound to come out. But that doesn't mean a total blowup. It just means that Chapter 29 is going to have even more Shepherd drama. I hope you enjoyed. I'm not gonna lie, I knocked myself out for this chapter. So pretty please, indulge me like the wine I had to skip tonight and review._


	29. Practice Makes Progress

**A/N: Happy new year!** I'm alive, I'm back, and I'm sorry I let so many Sundays go by without being able to post a new chapter of QPQ. Let me make it up to you? Here's a long chapter picking right up from the chaos of the last chapter. It's so long that the second part of it had to become a new chapter. So start with this one, and if you're still on board, you'll get the next chapter before you know it. Maybe even before the long weekend is up. I am so grateful to everyone who's stayed interested in this story while I haven't been able to write it. Your enthusiasm powered this long-delayed update, so I hope you enjoy it!

* * *

 ** _Practice Makes Progress_**

Gestational Age: Nineteen weeks, five days  
Baby is the Size of a: Magic 8-ball (thanks to the new baby website her niece Chrissy suggested, which views fruit- and vegetable-dating as too gendered)  
Total Number of Shepherds Currently in Seattle: 7 (including fetus)  
Total Number of Shepherds Normally in Seattle: 3 (including fetus)  
Total Number of Shepherds Currently Starring in a French Farce Nightmare: 4 (excluding fetus as well as extrauterine children)  
Total Number of Shepherds at Fault: Still unclear  
Total Number of Shepherds Who Will Likely Get the Blame: 1 (carrying said fetus, but not including said fetus)

..

For one long moment after Carolyn's entrance, no one says anything. The foyer by the elevators remains frozen, crackling with exposed secrets.

And then she turns to her son.

"Trailer?" she repeats. "Who lives in a trailer?"

. . . so she heard enough.

"I do," Derek says after a moment.

Carolyn turns to Addison. " _You're_ living in a trailer?"

Glancing nervously at Derek, Addison rests a hand on her bump, hoping it might distract her mother-in-law.

It doesn't.

 _Damn it._

"Um, actually . . . . "

". . . not anymore," Mark supplies, annoyingly. To make matters worse, his eyes are twinkling with more amusement than malice. He's stirred the pot this morning and he's boiled it over since his arrival in Seattle, but it's hard to hate him as much as he deserves while Lilly, holding both his hands now, is attempting to redirect his attention for a flip. And while Claire, hands clasped with glee, is somewhat patiently waiting her turn while gazing up at Mark with hopeful anticipation.

That's Mark, charming his way out of whatever messes he causes.

. . . oh, but then it's _much_ easier to hate him when he starts talking again. "Hey, Mom – you want to know where she's living now?" he asks.

"I think we should go back to the room," Derek interrupts, before his mother can respond.

"You go," Nancy says quickly. "The girls and I will go downstairs. You four can stay here and finish this . . . conversation."

Is that what this is?

And then Addison sees her husband's expression at the word _four_ , clearly not considering Mark someone who should be involved. Not that she can blame him.

"Mom," Derek mutters.

Their niece has a similar expression, staring at her mother, presumably for a different reason. "But we can't go downstairs!" Lilly's eyes are wide with concern. "Our breakfast is coming up _here_. We'll starve without breakfast!"

Nancy, with some effort it seems, doesn't respond to this. Instead, with a very pointed look at Addison and Derek – and then Mark – she turns to her daughters.

"You're not going to starve. We'll get something to eat downstairs."

It's a sign of how very confusing this morning has been that Carolyn doesn't even protest the shocking waste of food this suggests. "Girls … let's go," Nancy instructs, holding out her hands to Lilly and Claire.

With a sigh indicating the major concession she's making, Lilly releases her grip on Mark to join her mother.

Claire, on the other hand, who has been pulling at Mark's pant leg in the hopes he'll flip her next, stays by his side.

"Can we get hot chocolate, Mommy? When we go downstairs?" Lilly asks, reaching out to press the elevator call button helpfully; Addison has to admire her sheer opportunism.

"Fine." Nancy massages the bridge of her nose, turning to her youngest, and as yet unconvinced daughter. " _Claire._ "

Just then the elevator doors open, but before Nancy can hustle her daughters inside, the telltale metallic clack of a wheeled table announces they're too late.

There's the _clang_ of covered dishes, that faint rattle of ice against crystal glasses, and a heavenly scent that reminds her she's pretty hungry herself.

"It's our breakfast!" Lilly shouts, ignoring a glare from her mother.

For a moment time freezes again as the uniformed bellman pushing the cart, with an impressively neutral expression, takes in the chaos around him.

Addison tries to imagine the scene from his perspective. Let's see, the cast of characters at this morning's unscripted performance include:

One disapproving looking elderly woman in a housecoat.

One less disapproving looking, definitely less elderly woman, attempting to herd two children.

Two little girls with morning mussed hair, one of whom is being semi-successfully restrained from leaping at the room service table.

One smirking manwhore—okay, the bellman might not realize that, although if Mark has been staying at this hotel then probably the whole staff has figured it out.

A very handsome, and no she's not biased, _non_ manwhore with perfect hair and an express somewhere between irritation and resignation.

A rather pregnant woman cradling her bump.

A well concealed Sheplet.

. . . and a partridge in a pear tree.

"Did you bring us our breakfast?" Claire asks eagerly.

Addison snaps back to reality.

There's another hectic moment when Addison is certain her mother-in-law is going to whip out the piercing, two-fingered whistle she's only witnessed on a few occasions – but it's smoothed over when Nancy quickly and effectively convinces the bellman to keep the food warm for them instead, and then ushers her girls into the waiting elevator with a quick mouthed _sorry_ to Addison, who still hasn't heard an answer as to why her husband apparently summoned Nancy to Seattle without bothering to warn his wife.

The elevator doors close on Nancy and her chattering daughters, and it's only adults – well, assuming Mark counts as an adult.

Assuming any of them counts as an adult, considering that currently Mark and Derek are standing ten feet apart in equally annoyed postures, Derek with his head turned away and a glare stamped across his face and Mark with furrowed brow and hands spread as if to claim he's an innocent victim of this drama.

Addison, for her part, is leaning against the gold-and cream papered wall – half because she's genuinely tired, half in case this reminder of her delicate condition helps her position with her husband _or_ her mother.

(Mark's opinion of her, she's well aware, is low. She can't do much about that right now.)

Carolyn is looking from one of them to the other. "I hope you three are ready to explain yourselves."

"What did I do?" Derek asks, sounding affronted.

"You forgot to tell your mother you and Addison broke up," Mark supplies helpfully.

"We didn't _break up_ ," Derek snaps, "not that it would be any of your business if we did."

"They're not living together," Mark announces.

Carolyn looks confused. "Addie's not living in your . . . trailer?"

"I was living in his trailer," Addison manages, studiously avoiding Mark's smirking gaze. "And now I'm, well, now I'm not."

"Was that so hard?" Mark asks, looking far too pleased with himself for her liking.

"Would you just shut up," Derek mutters, glaring at him. "And leave Addison alone," he adds, which makes a little ribbon of warmth run through her, except –

"Derek, why didn't you tell me you called Nancy?" she whispers.

"Never mind," he says, not quite as quietly. "We'll talk about it later."

"Good strategy, man, that one always works out for you," Mark says, chuckling, and Addison quickly rests a hand on her husband's chest just in case his clenched fists are for more than show.

" _Boys._ " Carolyn is frowning at them. "I was hoping you had straightened things out between you." Her gaze at Mark turns decidedly affectionate.

 _Ugh_.

But fine, she'll just let this all peter out –

"Mark wants to sleep with Meredith," Addison blurts before she can stop herself.

Derek's eyes flash. "Excuse me?"

"But you're happily married, Derek." Mark grins. "You shouldn't worry about who I sleep with."

Addison closes her eyes briefly, regretting starting this line of conversation. But it only gets worse.

"Who's Meredith?" His mother asks.

Derek's whole face is a warning, and Mark actually doesn't rise.

For once.

"Just leave Meredith alone. Leave her alone." Derek glares at his former best friend. "She hasn't done anything and she doesn't deserve … that." He gestures in Mark's general direction with uncensored disgust.

"You sound like your wife." Mark pronounces the word _wife_ like it's a big joke.

They're talking over each other again and then there it is – loud and piercing, and this from a woman who spent most of her adult life living in the midst of New York City sirens – the whistle.

Addison winces. Mark and Derek both have guilty expressions, hands shoved in their pockets in surprisingly similar postures.

"Now," Carolyn says, clearing her throat, "back to the room?"

No one argues this time.

..

Inside the suite, Carolyn separates them with her traditional efficiency. "Mark first," she announces.

"You – in there." She points, and Derek frowns, presumably at being ordered around like the child he hasn't been in years.

"I don't think this is – " He falls silent at her expression.

"Addie, why don't you wait in the bedroom, dear," his mother says in a very different tone, causing Mark and Derek to exchange an irritated glance. "Don't go anywhere," she adds to her daughter in law, "I want to give you something."

"What . . . kind of something?" Addison asks nervously, trying not to recall the childhood stories Derek and his sisters have told her about their mother chasing them through the house with a wooden spoon.

"A present."

"A present?" Derek repeats. "Why does she get a present when we're in trouble?"

Mark nods vigorously in support and it strikes Addison that it's the first time she's seen them agree since . . . that time in the on-call room she doesn't want to think about.

Carolyn, for her part, pats her son on the shoulder. "Derek, dear, don't compare yourself to others or you'll always feel like you're missing out."

"But that's not – "

His mother just summons Mark again, acting as if she can't hear her son.

"Did you see that?" he asks Addison; it's clearly rhetorical.

Separate rooms, indeed.

They're all edging _thisclose_ to 40 and certainly don't have to take orders from Derek's mother.

 **. . .**

. . . which would be more convincing if Addison were not currently in the bedroom she and Derek shared last night, while Derek is cooling his heels in the bedroom Nancy shared with the girls while his mother conducts her first one-on-one interrogation with Mark in _her_ bedroom.

All very normal.

 _Very._

Addison takes the opportunity to sit down in the overstuffed chair in the corner of the room. There's a loveseat too, not to mention a king-sized bed, and she and Derek certainly could have both fit in here. But apparently that's not Carolyn's divide-and-conquer style, and she's not exactly upset that her pregnancy affords her the better spot.

She could leave.

She could leave, of _course_ she could, she's an adult. A married, pregnant(!) surgeon who doesn't need to take orders from her mother-in-law.

But the chair is pretty comfortable, and the ottoman that seems to rise under her feet is the perfect, heavenly height.

As long as she's here, she might as well wait. Throw her mother-in-law a bone or two.

Tipping her head back, just to rest her eyes a bit, she places a hand on her bump. _This is your family, kiddo. I guess you'd better get used to it._

 **..**

"Well? What do you have to say for yourself?"

Derek winces a little. At least his mother didn't add a _young man_ on the end of her question – it would be a lie if so, but then here he is, pushing middle age a bit closer than he'd prefer, listening to a lecture like he's still a frizzy-haired kid in a baseball uniform.

Wincing again at the memory, he frees a hand to pat his current hair as discreetly as possible just to make sure –

Relieved, he tunes back in to his mother's lecture. The scolding may be vintage, but the hair is decidedly modern day.

" . . . when she's pregnant. That's a very important time in a woman's life."

"I know that," he says when she pauses, apparently expecting an answer.

"Then you should know it's not the time to upset her."

"Upset her?" His eyes widen at the unfairness of it all. "I'm the one who tried to – "

And then he stopped, because it's not his mother's business, nor would he expect her to understand the way Addison's pregnancy and the subsequent revelations have brought them closer together and further apart in turn . . . and all at once. Isn't he the one who told her not to leave the trailer? Who needed the reminder to stay back the morning their baby moved for the first time?

The distance between them isn't his fault. Not this time.

But he's not going to tell his mother that.

"Why did you call Nancy?"

He blinks at the change of topic. "I wanted her to visit," he says vaguely.

Their son's potential heart defect is off the table, no matter how experienced an interrogator his mother may be.

"But you didn't tell Addie."

"I didn't want her to think I was – " He stops before can say too much.

"Worried about her," his mother suggests with a lifted eyebrow.

Derek doesn't answer.

"What's wrong with worrying about her?"

"Have you met her?"

His mother looks like she's fighting a smile. Then her face falls into serious lines. "Son – pregnancy is a difficult time."

"I know that, Mom," he sighs.

"Do you?" She props her hands on her hips. "You may think you do, sweetheart, but let me assure you have _no_ idea what it's like to actually _be_ pregnant."

"Is that my fault too?"

"Don't be fresh." His mother folds her arms until he mutters an apology. "It's a lot for anyone, expecting your first baby, but you're not the one who's exhausted and nauseated and waking up to a different body every morning. . . . that's right," his mother adds, gesturing with no small amount of self-deprecation at the stocky build underneath her housecoat. "Did you forget that Lizzie was married in my wedding gown?"

 _Gown_ is overstating it a fair bit, but it's true that Liz, as tall and slim as all the older girls, wore her mother's wedding dress. He's not sure how much he needs to be thinking about the figures of any of the women in his family of origin, and he supposes his mother can tell that from his expression.

"You can't control much about the pregnancy," his mother says, "and that's difficult, but neither can Addison. Everything is happening _to_ her."

"All right." He sighs, resting his elbows on his knees. "Are we finished here?"

"We are not finished here, not with that attitude." His mother frowns at him. "Derek, the least you can do is be supportive when your wife is carrying your child, when she's about to – "

"I am being supportive!" he snaps before he can stop himself. " _I'm_ the one who didn't want her to leave. I'm the one who told her to stay. _She's_ the one who wanted space. And I'm giving it to her. I'm giving her what she wanted. So take it up with her if you don't like it!"

He's breathing heavily, regretting his outburst, but for some reason his mother looks satisfied. "I intend to," she says. "In fact, why don't you send her in?"

..

"Mom's ready for you." Derek pauses in the half-open doorway, realizing from the peaceful sound of her breathing that Addison is asleep in the oversized armchair.

He's ready to turn around and tell his _you're too male and stupid to understand pregnancy_ mother that he's certainly not going to wake his wife up for an untimely scolding.

"Wait – I'm not asleep," she murmurs before he can leave.

"Are you sure?" He eases onto the arm of the chair, muscle memory placing just enough of his weight not to crowd her while he sees her move her closer arm infinitesimally away to give him more room.

"I'm talking to you, aren't I?" she asks, her voice still endearingly sleepy. Some of her hair has slipped over her face and he moves it away, not letting his fingers linger over the warmth of her cheek.

"You talk in your sleep sometimes," he says instead, knowing she'll respond.

"I do not!" She lifts a hand as if she's going to swat at him and then seems to think better of it, her expression growing serious instead. "Derek . . . is Mom mad?" she asks, sounding a good deal younger than her years.

"Furious." But he stops teasing her quickly, recognizing her expression. "She's . . . Mom," he says. "She's not really mad, she's just . . . "

". . . Mom," Addison supplies.

"Exactly." He eases off the arm of the chair and extends a hand to his wife. "I'll walk you," he suggests, only half joking, a flood of memories of making the same offer when they had different classes in medical school.

Addison's expression is soft like she's remembering too.

"It's okay," she says. "I know the way."

He sees the exact moment she stops herself from kissing him goodbye and reminds himself that this space is important to her.

Even if he's pretty sure she's not enjoying it any more than he is.

 _I need you to choose me._

Simple as that.

All he has to do is solve the most important puzzle he's ever faced.

..

"We got off easy, huh?" Mark smirks at him like it's all a big joke. "No chores. No Hail Marys. We can still go to the prom."

Of course Mark has no idea they already did that; why would he? He's probably thinking of the one they attended together twenty years ago, the one where –

"Maybe you'll stay away from my date this time," Derek says darkly.

"Maybe." Mark sounds almost cheerful.

Is this just another game to him?

Derek has an unfortunate flashback to the terrible argument in that claustrophobic call room. Mark was there. He was the instigator, all but egging Derek on. Not for the first time, he wonders if all of this is just a game to Mark.

All of _this._ As in his life. His wife, and their life.

"Is something funny?" he asks abruptly when Mark is still staring at him with that infuriating smirk.

"Only if you think your mom flying across the country to lecture us like we just got kicked out of Sunday school for chewing gum is funny," Mark says, managing somehow to sound almost reasonable.

"The chewing gum was your idea," Derek reminds him.

"True." Mark tilts his head, reminiscent. "But it wasn't all bad – that's what got Bonnie Rafferty to pay attention to me, remember?"

He does remember, though he'd rather not. Small town, small world, small wonder he can call to mind Bonnie with her long red pigtails and freckled face. Of course Mark wanted her to pay attention to him. Mark always wanted attention; he went after it like a prize. And no matter how many girls paid attention – first little ones, when they were just kids, and then bigger and bigger ones as they grew – it was never enough.

Not even when he won the biggest prize of all.

Or stole it, more likely.

The truth is, he remembers all of it. And he'd rather not.

"Why are you here?" he asks sharply.

"Mom told me to – "

"She's not your mom," he snaps before he can stop himself and feels a gush of victory . . . and then a trickle of guilt . . . at the stricken look on his former friend's face.

He covers it quickly, pasting on a familiar smirk instead. "What can I say, Derek?" he spreads his hands. "Nancy's here, your mom's here, you're having a reunion and didn't even tell me."

"It's not a damn reunion."

"Well, not before, since I wasn't invited." Mark props himself against one papered wall, his posture as insolent as his tone.

"It's not about you!" he hisses, unable to stop himself. "There's something wrong with the baby. That's what we found out. That's why I called Nancy. Are you happy now?"

Mark looks stricken, though. Not happy at all. He opens his mouth a few times, then closes it again.

Mark Sloan, at a loss for words? Derek has known him since they were five years old and this is a first.

"What kind of a something?"

"None of your business." Derek shoves his hand in his pocket before the shaking can give him away. Saying it out loud – _there's something wrong with the baby –_ was worse than he'd expected. He has to count to ten to gather himself. Ten deep breaths. Ten inhales, ten exhales, and the room isn't blurry anymore, though he can't seem stop his heart from pounding.

"I'm sorry, man," Mark says quietly.

"Yeah, I can tell."

"I didn't know."

"I didn't tell you."

They're both silent for a moment.

Mark's expression looks troubled. "Hey. You, uh, you want to talk about it?"

"No, I don't."

There's something different in the air anyway; the lingering hint of malice seems to have evaporated, or at least lifted.

It's not that they're brothers. Or that they ever will be again.

But still . . . something's different.

..

" . . . and now I'm mostly just tired." Addison pauses for breath, tucking her hair behind her ears, feeling almost shy. She was expecting to be told off for any number of things; she wasn't expecting to be grilled so gently about her pregnancy. She can't imagine her mother speaking to her like this. Bizzy was pregnant, twice, which is hard enough in itself to believe, and certainly not enough to expect her mother to be interested in Addison's symptoms even if Addison were foolish enough to share the news of her pregnancy. This is _Bizzy_ , the same Bizzy who snapped at Addison not to be vulgar when she told her mother she had a stomach ache.

She was six.

It turned out to be appendicitis, and when she was finally rushed from school to the hospital in a bleating ambulance, she begged the nice men who lifted her onto the stretcher not to tell her mother that she'd stained her school uniform with vomit.

. . . yeah, sometimes she wishes her memory were just a _little_ less detailed.

Then maybe she wouldn't be so moved by the series of ordinary questions. Maybe they wouldn't feel quite so extraordinary.

"I was the most tired with Derek." Carolyn smiles at her, her eyes soft with recollection. "It might have been the three girls who were already here, but . . . I think it was actually my first boy."

"Boys make you more tired?" Addison asks, smiling back at her, fuck all her obstetric credentials for this kind of soul-warming acceptance.

"In my experience." Carolyn shakes her head. "But I'm not a doctor." She pauses. "The books I sent . . . "

" . . . are great," Addison says gamely. "I'm, uh, I'm reading them."

"Good. Some of them might be a bit out of date."

Addison coughs politely.

"But I'm sure you can see the value in them anyway." Her mother-in-law leans back in the chair.

And then, before she can say anything else, Addison's stomach growls.

"You haven't had breakfast," Carolyn surmises, eyes widening.

"Well, no, but – "

"Stay here," she orders in a voice that brooks no objections.

..

"Where's the room service?" his mother demands, without preamble, stalking into the living room.

Derek and Mark both look up, waiting to be scolded for not keeping to separate rooms, but Carolyn seems to have other priorities.

"The room service?"

"The – tray. Table. The thing." Carolyn frowns. "Addison needs breakfast."

"Addison never eats breakfast," Mark says.

"She does now." Derek swallows hard on guilt for not having put two and two together himself. "Mom, I can go get – "

"You stay here. _I'll_ go," Carolyn says, and then she's bustling out the door before either of them can stop her.

"Think the hotel is ready for her?" Mark asks.

"Is anyone?" Derek won't smile, though. They're not friends.

They never will be again.

That's just how it is.

..

"You really didn't have to." Addison's throat feels thick as she looks at the silver-domed tray. There's oatmeal in it – her breakfast-loving baby's favorite, thanks to his father's apparently dominant genes. There's brown sugar on the tray and a little china pitcher of cream and if her mother in law has one good quality, it's that she's never told Addison to eat _less._

So it's with a glorious lack of judgment that Addison spoons sugar and fresh fruit in copious measure into the steaming bowl of oatmeal. Her baby wants her to get fat? Well, that's just the kind of sacrifice a mother has to make, isn't it?

She's halfway done, having realized upon first bite how hungry she was, before her mother-in-law speaks again.

"Better?"

"Much." Addison pauses, glancing at the closed bedroom door. "Um. Mom? Do you think they're okay in there?"

She cranes her neck as if it will give her a view into the closed off room.

"They're okay. . . . don't forget, Addie, I've known them a long time. Longer than you have," Carolyn reminds her, apparently realizing Addison isn't convinced, but it actually sounds sentimental rather than supercilious.

It's actually peaceful in the bedroom, low blue-grey light filtering in through the windows, her body feeling warm and satisfied from the filling breakfast.

"You're going to be good mother, Addie."

Tears fill her eyes, in spite of herself. "You can't know that," she mumbles, keeping her eyes on her bowl.

"Look at me?"

With some effort, she does.

"I've known _you_ for a long time too," Carolyn says quietly. "Don't forget that either."

For a moment neither of them speaks.

Then her mother-in-law clears her throat. "There was something I wanted to give you, Addie."

Oh, the present – she'd forgotten about it, first in the intoxicating whirlwind of having a maternal figure actually asking about her pregnancy, and, well . . . the delicious bowl of oatmeal.

"There was something I wanted to give you," Carolyn repeats, "but it's . . . well. It's private."

Addison glances around the room, confused. Aren't they alone?

One eyebrow lifted, her mother-in-law points toward the door. "I wouldn't put it past the boys to be eavesdropping."

..

"That's offensive," Mark says. "Did you hear that?"

Wordlessly, Derek indicates Mark's position at the door and then his own position casually leaning against the wall.

Mark frowns. "That's not the point. The point is, we're adults. Surgeons."

They just look at each other for a moment, and then Mark eases reluctantly away from the door. "Fine. Hey – is there any of that coffee left?"

Derek leads the way back towards the kitchen.

..

" . . . and then Richard basically said I was too . . . pregnant to be chief of surgery."

Carolyn's expression is rewardingly outraged. She looks pensive for a moment.

"And Mark and Derek are both in the running?"

Addison nods.

"They both wanted to be captain of the baseball team, senior year." Her tone turns reminiscent. "They had to get student buy-in for it. And you've never seen such a tense – Mark was still over, all the time, he practically lived with us by that point. But the two of them wouldn't even look at each other."

"What happened?"

"They decided to be co-captains."

"Co-captains." Addison considers this. "I'm not sure that would work this time."

"The stakes are a little higher," Carolyn concedes.

Addison has heard stories of Derek's high school sports career and she's seen his reaction when she's less than attentive, too – as far as she's concerned, the stakes were pretty high back then. It's more –

"A numbers thing," she explains. "It's not just Derek and Mark. There's another surgeon, a – heart surgeon."

Carolyn nods.

"Just the four of you?"

"Yeah. It's, uh, it's kind of a boys' club." Addison sighs.

"Growing up, it was the opposite for Derek. All girls. Too many girls."

Addison considers this.

"But this – contest – is all boys?" Carolyn confirms. "Other than you?"

She nods.

"All right, then." Her mother-in-law leans forward, bracing herself on the upholstered arm of the couch. "What's your plan for beating them?"

Addison's eyes widen. Even in a morning of surprises . . . she wasn't expecting this.

But Carolyn seems to be waiting for an actual answer.

"Well," Addison thinks for a moment, "I guess I'm going to fight like a girl. Let the three of them drive each other crazy, and then . . . " she gestures, hopefully with enough clarity for her mother-in-law to read it:

 _Then I'll go in for the kill._

For some reason, it doesn't have the same allure it might have a few months ago.

Her mother-in-law nods. "Not a bad strategy." She pauses. "I had three brothers, you know."

"I know."

She does. She memorized Derek's family tree before he was her husband, before he was even her fiancé, when she was still tracing its roots and branches with wonder at how much _life_ was in the house he grew up in.

(And casseroles she'd never eat too, and fabrics she'd never touch and colors she'd never choose, but that seemed to fade when they got into the swing of holidays, when they were all singing carols and her mother-in-law was directing whichever sister had a crying baby to hand it to Addison, _you know she has the magic touch_ , with a note of approving pride in her voice. What she would have done, once, for a little of that approving pride from her own mother . . . but that's another story.)

Her mother-in-law is looking at her, and Addison returns her gaze.

Really looking this time.

Carolyn Shepherd's eyes are tired. But they're flickering with interest too. Her hands, curled on the brocade arm of the couch, are knotted with age. Even if she didn't know it, it would be obvious Carolyn has no use for the kind of expensive anti-aging products her own mother started using decades ago. She's still wearing a sensible housecoat – an actual _housecoat_ , which she didn't even know was a thing until the first time she slept . . . but that doesn't matter.

She looks past it, looks ta the woman instead.

Addison is remembering that before she was a mother-in-law, a grandmother of soon-to-be fifteen . . . she was a woman. A wife. Someone who fell in love and even, at one point, a new mother.

Almost unconsciously, her hand drifts down to cover the swell of her pregnancy.

 _This is your family, kiddo_.

It's the same words as before . . . but the meaning behind them is different this time. Their son can't respond, but she has the feeling anyway that he gets it.

"Listen to that," her mother-in-law says.

"What?" Addison looks up. "I don't hear anything."

"Exactly." Carolyn nods with satisfaction. "They're getting along."

"Or they've killed each other."

"They never have."

"But that was before . . . ." Her voice trails off. Why is she reminding her mother-in-law of her own betrayal? Is she testing her? Is this some kind of pregnancy brain?

Carolyn is quiet, and there's no doubt she's also thinking about the _before._

And the after.

"Do you regret it?" she asks quietly.

So quietly Addison almost doesn't make out the words. Until she does.

There's no need to ask what _it_ is.

"Every day," Addison says.

For a few moments, they're both quiet.

Then she takes a deep breath, not sure her mother-in-law is ready to hear this.

Then again . . . she did ask.

"That's, uh, that's not actually true," Addison admits quietly. "Not anymore. It _was_ every day, I did regret it every day, until I found out I was going to have this baby because now . . . now I wouldn't change anything. I couldn't. Even though I'm still sorry, so sorry, for the hurt I caused. I can't regret it, though. Not anymore."

Carolyn looks at her for one long moment in which Addison is certain she's about to lose all the goodwill she's earned with this pregnancy, a moment in which she already mourns the loss of the warmth and interest in the latest grandchild, the comforting acceptance of their new normal.

 _Come on, Addie, how long did you actually think it would last? You know she's never really liked you._

And then Carolyn reaches one of her hands with its aging skin across the gap between them—it's the one with the wedding ring—and pats Addison's arm. "I understand," she says.

..

"So?" Derek says when she emerges. "Are you grounded?"

"You could say I got off with a warning." Addison glances toward the closed door. "It's Mark's turn again now?"

Derek nods.

Addison cocks her head, taking in the complexities of Carolyn's interrogation process.

"It's quite a system."

"It does work," Derek says, "at least according to my mother."

"Do you think so?"

"Well." He looks down for a moment before meeting her eyes again, and his are twinkling. "We never killed each other, the six of us, so I guess that counts for something."

They're already back in the living room, Nancy and the girls returned from the lobby with chocolate-croissant crumbs in a Hansel and Gretel trail, and a sheepish Mark having departed for work, when Addison realizes Derek said the _six_ of us.

..

"Just look at all this wasted food," Carolyn says, surveying the room with a heavy sigh as if the bits of congealed syrupy pancakes and rather sticky fruit are burdens for her to bear.

It's quiet in the suite now, worlds away from the chaotic interlude at the elevator. Addison, who has been in the spare bedroom attempting to fix her hair for work, leans her head out.

"You can have the rest of mine, Grandma," Claire says generously, apparently misunderstanding her grandmother's critique as hunger, and indicating the half-chewed corner of a waffle remaining on her plate. Somehow, she managed most of it despite the _aperitif_ on offer in the lobby.

Addison sees Nancy cover her mouth politely with her napkin to stifle a laugh.

"Thank you, sweetheart." Carolyn smiles at her granddaughter and then pushes her chair back, looking from Derek to Addison, and then back again. "This has been a very . . . busy morning, hasn't it? When are we leaving for the hospital?"

Derek coughs, sounding mildly like he might be choking; Addison hastily makes her way back into the room to pass him a napkin.

"For the hospital?" Addison exchanges a look with Nancy, then turns to her mother-in-law. "What hospital?"

"The same one as yesterday, dear," Carolyn says patiently. "I'd like to see where you work. Meet your friends." She pauses, glancing at Derek, and then grimacing toward the misty grey view through the oversized windows. "There must be a reason you're so fond of Seattle, son. It can't just be the weather."

..

So her mother-in-law wants to go to the hospital with them. She wants to see their workplace. She wants to meet their friends.

Which is great. No, really, it's great.

It's certainly not a threat to the newfound goodwill she's been basking in.

And she's not, of course, desperate to maintain that goodwill. That would be pathetic, and she's not this . . . pathetic thing. She's not.

And if she has a few _tiny_ concerns about the hospital visit, well, that's healthy, isn't it? She's just trying to be prepared. And they're just a few concerns.

Five.

Well, eight.

 **One.** _Carolyn might hear someone call her Satan._ This is less about the insult (though Carolyn has her loyal moments) and less about the sacrilege. Does it count as sacrilegious if it's Satan? She's not sure. But Carolyn has never been one to accept any bible characters' names in vain and yes, Addison would love to see her mother-in-law's face just at hearing the term _bible characters._

 **Two.** _Carolyn might meet Meredith._ Which is fine. There's nothing awkward about her fertility-obsessed mother-in-law realizing she narrowly missed the chance to plant a whole garden of tiny Shepherds inside a ten-years-younger womb. Look it up in the dictionary under _not awkward_ , right after the hotel room divide and conquer interrogation of three nearly-forty-year-olds by a seventy-five year old woman in a housecoat. Awkward? What's that?

 **Three.** _Carolyn might like Meredith._ Addison can admit, French of her though this may be, that she herself has a moved beyond being okay with Meredith and actually – fine, she likes her. All right? There's something called sisterhood, and when a ninety-pound intern catches a cough-cough- _cough_ pound (she's with child, don't forget) fainting attending _and_ keeps her secret pregnancy a secret? It's enough to forgive the fact that she knows exactly where said intern's hands have been . . . and her mouth . . . but the point is, even though Addison actually likes Meredith, a tiny, uncharitable part of her still isn't quite ready for Carolyn to like her too. Or more specifically . . .

 **Four.** _Carolyn might like Meredith better than Addison._ Petty? Childish? She was raised by wolves, after all. _Secure attachment_ , for Addison, is about the clasps on her shoes, not her laughable bond with her mother. So why shouldn't she worry that Carolyn, after sixteen years of putting up with a daughter-in-law who was too rich, too privileged, too _not_ what she wanted for her son, might be tempted by something new? (Derek was. And yeah, that's unfair, because Addison strayed first, but the inside of her head is _not_ about being fair.) Everyone likes a clean slate. And Meredith is nothing if not a doe-eyed, irritatingly-good-with-patients, smarter-than-Addison-would-have-preferred clean slate.

 **Five.** _Carolyn might like Mark better than Addison._ Fine, there's a theme here. (Thanks, Bizzy! There's a reason she still hasn't told her own mother about her pregnancy, nor does she have any desire to.). And Mark is no Meredith. Mark is fair game. Carolyn has loved Mark a lot longer than she has . . . whatever it is she feels about Addison. Mark was a Shepherd a decade and a half before Addison first crossed the threshold. Addison still had unflattering bangs when she met her mother-in-law, was still mostly a gawky post-adolescent and her husband would all too quick to say her brain hadn't finished developing yet, either. But she was an adult. Mark? Mark was a first grader with a cowlick and a smattering of freckles and a heartbreaking smile. Addison has never, ever thought she'd win in a competition for Carolyn, and she's never thought she had to. It's just that things are different now. And the hospital is full of . . . things. Even if everyone is nominally getting along right now.

 **Six.** _Mark might pull a fast one._ It wouldn't be the first time he switched sides faster than a Shepherd niece playing Christmas hopscotch. Mark was Derek's best friend, but he was Addison's friend too. Before the affair, before the relationship, before the abortion and before she left him and before he showed up in Seattle to blow apart her reconciliation with her husband . . . they were friends. Mark misses Derek, and she knows this. He misses all the Shepherds. He might not give up an opportunity to get back in Carolyn's good graces by selling out the woman it's clear he hasn't forgiven. Relatedly:

 **Seven.** _Carolyn might find out everything._ And she's just not ready for that. She's pretty sure she'll never be ready for that. Carolyn was surprisingly sanguine about the affair – more than she ever could have expected – warm and enthusiastic about her pregnancy . . . but the abortion? _Unforgivable_ is one thing when Derek hisses it at her in a marital spat, another thing entirely when it's Carolyn Shepherd with the weight of the Vatican behind her. It's not like Addison is rushing to tell her but Mark, who values self-preservation above everything else . . . well, he probably won't bring it up. Except that he's the hero of the story, in his own eyes. He's the one who tried to stop her. And he's the one who flew to Seattle expressly to sell her out to Derek with the same material.

 **Eight.** _Carolyn might be the messy personal life straw that breaks the hospital's back._ This one is unlikely. Isn't it? Richard has forgiven a lot, from the borderline-unprofessional way she and Derek bickered publicly on her arrival to the inadvertently public pregnancy announcement at the prom, to the top-volume explosion of her marriage in a public on call room. Forget _don't air your dirty linens in public_ , there's an argument to be made that Addison has been full on doing her laundry at Seattle Grace since she arrived. Her best friend already flew out for a controversial surgery. Her sister-in-law already dropped in for a spontaneous dip into a double-uterus patient. Richard loves Addison and Derek, sure, but at some point, won't it be enough?

Because that's the thing. When you're Addison, and your husband is Derek, and your mother-in-law is Carolyn, and . . . _Mark_ is Mark, well, there are times when you just feel like a sink with an open drain.

When it feels like there _is_ no enough.

..

"Thanks. I've had enough." Derek hands back the coffee Addison has been offering him, as tradition dictates, whenever the speed of the jeep dips below forty-five. They must have downed gallons of caffeine this way over the years.

A few more miles under the jeep, and then Addison is the next to speak:

"So . . . your mother wants to go to the hospital."

Derek glances at the passenger seat out of the corner of his eye and then more fully when the light turns red. "My mother wants to go to the hospital."

Addison tips her head back, looking like she's gathering strength. One of her hands is resting over the bump where their child is growing. He stares because he can – she can't yell at him about it, not when they're in the car, and after all the secrets and the hiding, her pregnancy is public now.

Public, and visible.

She catches him looking and smiles.

"The sitter really said Doc looked okay?"

"He really did." Derek adjusts the wipers as the light rain that was falling when they left the hotel starts to pick up.

Addison doesn't respond, but he can hear the worry in the sound of her breathing.

Which is why they're on their way in the opposite direction of work, having exacted a promise from Nancy to keep all non-Derek, non-Addison Shepherds away from the hospital until they've received the all-clear. Carolyn Shepherd can be put off an hour or two, but he's known her long enough to know her hospital visit is happening either way.

Even if not, Addison was worried about Doc, and Derek, though he wouldn't say it aloud and risk the consequences, is still a little worried about Addison.

And so they're en route to the trailer instead of the hospital, out of the way though it may be.

Simple.

Quick.

They'll check on their dog, confirm the sitter's report, give him another chance to get some fresh air – should he want it – and then go to work. Simple as anything.

"Uncle Derek? Can I pet your doggie first?"

. . . in the front seat, anyway. In the back seat, where two little girls are strapped in with barely concealed excitement, things are slightly more complicated.

"No, _I_ want to pet your doggie first!" Claire protests.

But wrangling favors from Nancy has never been the easiest, and keeping his mother away from the hospital required some bribery.

" _I_ want to pet him first!"

Addison glances at him. _Good practice_ , she mouths, and he makes a face at her.

"Girls. Hey . . . girls." He waits for them to stop clamoring. "Aunt Addie is petting my . . . doggie first," he says firmly. "Doc missed her. And then both of you can pet him _together_."

This works.

He is _good._

..

Although by the time they get to his land, the sheer excitement of meeting the dog has proven too much for Claire, who turns shy and clings to Addison. Derek finally detaches her with the promise of a ride on his shoulders, and Lilly slips one hand into his and one into Addison's so they're a walking wall of Shepherds toward the Airstream.

"This is your house?" Lilly asks with interest, tilting her head up to see the trailer. "How come it's so small?"

"Houses come in all different sizes, honey," Addison says.

"But your _other_ house is big." Lilly cocks her head, looking reminiscent. "Really big." She pauses as they approach the trailer steps. "I don't know if we can all fit in there," she says nervously.

Derek glances at Addison. "How much did you bribe her to say this?"

"Not a cent." Addison strokes the top of her niece's head, looking amused. "She's smart, that's all."

He makes a face at her in response – and then they're inside, concern over Doc enough to end their teasing.

. . . Doc is fine.

He's fine, as in the same, and Addison can't deny she's missed his familiar shaggy face. She sinks down to her knees to greet him, burying her hands in his fur, while their nieces clamor around him with delight.

"Easy." Derek catches one of Claire's little hands. "Let him smell you first."

"I don't smell!"

"All people smell," Derek says, smiling. "That's how dogs get to know you."

His nieces look unconvinced, but they follow their uncle's instructions obediently and are rewarded with the highest of canine compliments: a slower than usual but still impressively graceful flop onto his back and a presentation of his belly for affectionate scratches.

..

He wasn't sure what to expect when they bartered a visit to Doc with Nancy's daughters in return for Nancy's holding off their mother from descending on the hospital. Addison was worried about Doc, he has no doubt about it. Her soft spot for the dog, if it was ever subtle, is no longer disguised at all.

There's some reluctance for his mother's hospital mixed in there too, he's pretty sure of it, but knows better than to bring it up when they don't have privacy. And privacy is one thing they haven't had since they woke up this morning post-perhaps-ill-advised Shepherd family sleepover.

So here they are, back at the trailer where Addison once lived, shadowed by two little girls excited enough by the dog not to ask too many questions about their aunt and uncle's unconventional living arrangements.

Doc, too, seems pleased with the distraction, though tired. They take him out and he ambles slowly along the shore in step with Addison while Derek, figuring he can throw Nancy a bone, lets the girls run off some energy along the trail.

"It's _raining_ ," Lilly says disapprovingly, jogging up to him.

"It rains at home too," Derek reminds her. "We need rain to make things grow."

Lilly seems unconvinced, but she enjoys watching Doc slowly – but determinedly – fetch a stick, and she and Claire are both sweetly impressed with his adherence to _sit_ (he was probably just tired, but they don't need to know that).

They have fun naming trees along the trail, well trained from their New England summer camps, and Derek manages to shoot Addison only a small look of amusement when both girls correctly identify poison oak on the first try.

"Beginner's luck," she says, frowning at him, and there's a moment he has to remind himself not to pull her in for a half-apologetic kiss.

It shouldn't feel so right, if it's wrong.

It shouldn't be so hard.

"Look, he likes me!" Claire beams, and Derek doesn't have the heart to tell her how delightfully undiscerning their dog is.

He just agrees and Doc, who is picking up rather adorable on the girls' energy, spends an enjoyable few minutes investigating their small hands with his wet nose, producing laughter, and eats almost half a biscuit proffered by each of the girls. Derek is impressed that the dog is diplomatic enough to make things equal. Maybe living with the occasionally-at-odds Shepherds has had an influence on him.

Meanwhile, Addison takes Claire in to use the bathroom, and his niece returns wide eyed. "It's so _small_ in there," she says, sounding impressed rather than judgmental.

"I want to see!" Lilly cries with genuine envy, and that plus a look at his watch is enough to get him to hustle all four of them toward departure.

"But I'm _wet_ ," Lilly protests, Addison sympathizing even though her rain-spattered pink windbreaker – he recognizes an expensive outdoor brand his mother hopefully has no idea is as costly as it is – is nothing if not waterproof.

He doesn't protest, just sets out more food for Doc while Addison uses the same hairdryer she once shook at him – _I hate the trailer! Hate, hate!_ – to dry damp spots on the girls' clothes before they head out in the drizzle once more, Derek bracing himself for complaints about the weather.

..

But there's a pause in the rain – an actual pause – as if the universe itself was waiting for them to load the car onto the ferry for the ride out of Bainbridge.

And yes it's a weekday, and yes it's indulgent, but it's a rare day when neither of them has a procedure scheduled in the morning.

So they take advantage of it and their nieces are thrilled.

The dog was thrilling.

The ferry is thrilling.

They're not too grown up, Nancy's little ones, not yet, to express the kind of enthusiasm you have to tamp down in your thirties. He may be long past it but he's forgotten, in his time away from New York, just how energizing it can be to witness it. His shoulders feel straighter, his muscles a little looser.

"This is _so_ fun!" Lilly cries, her head tilted back, long dark hair whipping in the wind, as the boat picks up speed.

"Higher, Uncle Derek!" Claire tugs at his collar. "I want to see more!" She's laughing into the spray and she hugs him around the neck, delighted, when he hoists her higher.

Addison turns to shoot him a grin.

They don't need to say it, either of them:

 _Practice._

They don't need to say anything to be reminded that one day that feels both soon and terribly far away, they'll make this trip with their own child.

This morning, this ferry, it's Nancy's children.

And Addison is beaming into the light spray off the water, her cheeks rosy from the wind. Her hands are resting on Lilly's shoulders, but she takes one off to give his arm a quick squeeze.

His hands are currently occupied with Claire, who having scoped out the view from up high seems determined to recreate the infamous scene in _Titanic_ – not the door scene, the other scene.

(Yes, he's seen _Titanic_ , and yes, it was his wife's fault, and no, he doesn't agree that Leonardo whatever-his-last-name-is was _just so handsome, and that twinkle in his eyes_ – he and Weiss, as he recalls, humored Addison and Savvy just as much as it took for their wives to stop interrogating them about how they would handle a similar shipwreck – _at this rate, I'd jump_ , Weiss muttered, and instead promise that the next group outing would involve sports.)

It was a long time ago, that day. Claire wasn't born. Even Lilly hadn't arrived yet. So he's not sure what's inspiring his niece to attempt to scale the side of the ferry. He just shifts her in his arms so that she still has a good view, but not so much a foothold.

"What that?" she asks, distracted at last, pointing. "Is it the Chrysler Building?"

It's hard to hear her over the wind.

"It's the Space Needle, actually." Derek hoists his niece a little higher. "We're in Seattle now."

"I know, silly." Claire gives him an affectionate smile. "Maybe Seattle has a Chrysler Building too."

"Yeah, Uncle Derek," Addison murmurs, for his benefit only, her warm lips close to his ear. "You don't know _everything._ "

The truth is, he feels better than he has in a while.

The air feels fresh and full of promise, the lingering fears for their son somehow muted into a calmer, steadier pulse of excitement.

There's something oddly gratifying about watching his nieces clamor around his pregnant wife, reminding her an eager chorus that they want to feel their newest cousin kick.

It's not quiet. It's loud, and a little messy.

It's better than quiet.

He glances at his wife; in profile, her open trench reveals the defined swell of the pregnancy. He's missed sharing her bed, sharing the feeling of the growing bump, but last night he traced its contours himself for the nightly ritual he's had to conduct by phone while they've been separated.

Still . . . here they all are, together.

 _This is your family, kiddo. We've all been waiting for you._

Out here, on the water, there's no room for fear. It's the thrill of the baby's existence he feels. The thrill of what they made together.

There's a reason his heart has always swelled in time with the motor of a boat under his feet.

Here's the bottom line: he has a thing for ferryboats.

(Ferries, fine. _A ferry is_ already _a boat_ , Lilly pointed out, hands on hips like a miniature Nancy, and he can't actually argue with that.)

He looks at his wife with her long windblown hair hiding most of her face and she could be any iteration of the woman who has been his since medical school. He's remembering the long ago February afternoon in residency when both they called out of work to take advantage of the gloriously unseasonal warmth. It was the tail end of a grey and miserable winter and then suddenly – it wasn't. _Are you sure,_ Addison questioned him, her eyes wide, _you don't know what surgeries you'll miss_. He told her he was sure: _there will be other surgeries. But there won't be another seventy-degree day in February, not in our lifetimes._ So they called in sick and spent the afternoon riding the Staten Island Ferry back and forth, pausing only to disembark on one sunny dock or another before boarding once more.

Her hair whipped in the wind then, just like now.

She stood in front of him, leaned back so he took her weight against him, so the atypical sunlight warmed them both.

 _It was worth it,_ he said to her, resolute, even when he found out that Gleeson – who didn't have nearly the steady hand Derek did – got to drill his own skull flap on one of McCafferty's famously precise craniotomies while they were ferrying back and forth across the harbor.

It was still worth it.

He glances again at his wife, half her face obscured by her hair.

She doesn't look so different from that long-ago February afternoon in New York Harbor.

She catches him looking this time – she doesn't miss much – and gives him a small, knowing smile that suggests she's remembering the same thing he is.

When she turns back to watching the approaching skyline, urged by an excited Lilly, he sees the hand that isn't holding onto their niece come to rest unconsciously, it seems, over the bump where their son is growing.

 _Their son._

Just like that, he's hit with the full import of the decade between that day on the Staten Island Ferry and this one on its Bainbridge equivalent.

Everything is different.

Some things are the same: he's here, and Addison is here, and there's the powerful grinding of the ferry underneath their feet, a silver-spired city growing closer across the water.

Some things are the same, but everything is different.

They're not residents, not anymore. They don't call in sick. They don't avoid work.

They don't ride the ferry for the fun of it, not together anyway. The thing is, this isn't something that they do. Not their grown up versions, anyway. He wouldn't.

It's a weekday.

It's almost noon.

And he's a husband now.

And he has responsibilities now.

He's an attending. A department head.

But the bottom line – and he knows the woman next to him, then and now, gets it too –

. . . sometimes he'd rather just be on a ferry.

* * *

 _To be continued. No, this isn't a cliffhanger, but sometimes the Nation deserves a happy not-really-the-ending, don't you think? Not much happened in this one . . . on the surface, anyway. In the next chapter: Carolyn Shepherd's anxiety-inducing hospital visit, some wisdom from a long-distance friend, Addison's present, and the fetal echo that brought Nancy to Seattle in the first place. Thank you, as always, for reading. I know I kept you waiting a long time, but your reviews have kept this story alive. So yeah, I'm shameless and I love hearing what you think. Reviews are love and I am grateful! See you soon . . . and I mean it this time._


	30. Miracles

**A/N: Thank you thank you thank you** for the warm welcome back. I said I'd try to update before the long weekend is up, and I'm skating in just under the wire. Can twice a week make up for my unscheduled hiatus? I hope so. Bear with me and we'll be back in the Sunday rhythm in no time.

Quick warning: if you're just tuning back into this story, make sure you read the previous chapter (29) before this one.

(And for the reader who asked about next stories for updating: I have two gigantic WIPs I need to wrap up, _Take Your Life and Light it Up_ and _The Climbing Way_ and they are both on deck come hell or high (ferry) water.) . Thank you again, as always, for reading, and I hope you enjoy this chapter!

* * *

 _ **Miracles**_

Gestational Age: Nineteen weeks, five days  
Baby is the Size of a: mango (so many tropical cocktails, so little time for the beach)  
Baby's Parents are: practicing for the future  
Baby's Cousins are: adorable . . . and exhausting  
Baby's Aunt is: not likely to get through a visit to the hospital without leaving her mark  
Baby's Grandmother is: even less likely  
Baby's _Doggie_ is: not so healthy, but still able to fetch a stick  
Baby's Family, on the Whole, is: complicated . . . like all the best things are

..

The break in the rain lasts no longer than the ferry ride, and by the time they reach the hospital wet droplets are falling at regular intervals. They can't get inside soon enough, the girls chattering as their aunt and uncle stamp rain off their feet on the heavy mats.

And then loud throat-clearing makes them all look up.

"Chief!" Derek stands a little straighter, holding onto a giggling Claire.

Richard, for his part, looks unamused.

"I see the two of you do still work here."

Addison glances at her watch, which requires her to lift the hand Lilly is currently firmly gripping, which in turn makes her niece giggle.

"And these two?" Richard gestures toward Claire, currently sitting on Derek's shoulders, her dark curls even wilder from the ferry ride, and Lilly, whose long, tight braids are hanging lower down her back as she tilts her head to take in the new person. "I assume they're not patients."

"No."

"Or very small interns?"

 _Does owning a Doctor Judy doll count?_

"No, sir."

"Addison – "

"Their mother is Nancy Shepherd," Addison says quickly. "She consulted on the case with the patient who had two uteruses . . . it was in the paper," she adds faintly.

 _When all else fails, go for publicity._

Richard studies her for a moment. "And is that patient in the hospital now?"

"Well . . . no," Addison admits.

"Is there a patient with three uteruses in my hospital today, at least? Four uteruses?"

"No, Chief."

Richard makes a noncommittal grunting sort of noise.

"So two of my department heads are spending their very highly paid time . . . babysitting."

Addison and Derek exchange a glance. Any one of a dozen memories of a cross Nancy over the years, complaining about her husband: _it's not babysitting when they're your children!_

Of course, Claire and Lilly aren't their children. They're family, though, so the chief's question is difficult to answer.

Claire chimes in instead.

" _Now_ can we go see the doggie again?" she asks dreamily, and with rather unfortunate timing, fisting a handful of her uncle's hair.

Addison cuts in before Richard can question whether _the_ _doggie_ is a good reason for two department heads to come in late. "Chief, we're just going to . . . return the girls," and she gives Lilly's hand an affectionate squeeze to make up for the clinical terminology, "and get back to work."

She's pretty sure she hears Richard mumble _back to work_ as if he's questioning whether they've started at all . . . well, fair enough.

"Right," Derek says, reading her quick glance for support. "In fact, I think I see my mother right – she's here."

Addison exhales with relief, Claire shouts _Grandma!_ with delight and Richard looks like he's rethinking bringing either Shepherd to Seattle.

"Your mother," Richard mutters before they can take their leave. "A family reunion, in my hospital . . . "

Addison and Derek exchange a glance.

"Chiefs don't have family reunions in the hospital," Richard says. He looks from Derek to Addison and back again, his face stern. "I don't see the other chief candidates bringing . . . family into the hospital."

"Actually, Chief," Derek says quickly, feeling Addison gathering steam – and a little smoke around the ears – next to him. "Didn't Burke's mother visit the hospital?"

Richard frowns. "I don't think that's the same – "

"And as for Sloan, well," Derek raises an eyebrow. "He hasn't brought any children here yet, that's true, but give him a chance – there must be a few of them out there."

It's a joke they've made before, more than once, and Addison is relieved and a little surprised that it's somehow no weightier than it was before the revelations about her time in New York with Mark.

Except the audience is different now.

"Uncle Mark has _children_?" Lilly asks with interest. "How come they never play with us? Where are they?"

"They could be anywhere," Derek says solemnly, as Addison elbows him, shaking her head.

"Uncle Derek is just being silly," Addison assures their niece.

"Uncle Derek is playing the odds," he corrects her. "And Aunt Addie is being an optimist."

"And Chief Webber is losing patience," Richard cuts in and Addison, flustered, assures him of their extreme focus and dedication for the rest of the day.

Together, both girls in tow, they make their way toward the main lobby entrance, where his mother and sister are waiting.

"He had some nerve, bringing up chief," Addison says quietly as they walk, leaning down to tuck some windswept strands of hair behind Lilly's ears. She can't help pausing to tweak her niece's cute upturned nose, getting a giggle in return.

"A hell – _heck_ of a lot of nerve. As if having children around makes you soft," Derek scoffs, as the little girl atop his shoulders uses both small hands to pat down the hair at the top of his head, murmuring _pretty_ underneath her breath.

"Exactly."

They smile at each other.

..

"Derek, dear." Carolyn raises her eyebrows as her granddaughters clamor to be first to describe their Bainbridge outing. "I hope we haven't distracted you too much from work."

"Uncle Derek lives in a dollhouse!" Claire reports to her mother breathlessly, sounding impressed, before Derek can respond. " _And_ he has a dog."

"A great dog," Lilly says, and for once Claire doesn't bicker back, just nods approvingly. Apparently they've found something they can agree on.

"And he said _hell_ ," Claire adds happily.

Nancy looks amused. "That's not – " she glances at Carolyn – "appropriate," she says, hastily changing course. "Derek . . . really."

"But Mommy, _you_ say hell too. And you said that other word too, remember, when Daddy – "

"I remember." Nancy raises her eyes heavenward, which is conveniently north of Carolyn's pointed gaze. "Never mind, Claire. Tell me about the doggie instead," she proposes. "And the dollhouse."

Derek can still hear her last question, fading out as he walks down the hall.

" . . . and where on earth Aunt Addie is keeping all her shoes."

..

"So . . . you have a dog," Nancy says as they walk down the hallway in step, the girls secure with Carolyn and, she'd be willing to bet, in search of a snack.

"We have a dog," Addison confirms.

"My daughters loved your dog."

"Well, he loved them too." Addison rests a hand on her bump, pausing for a moment, not sure if she felt—"wait a minute."

"Addie?"

"No, it's okay, just . . . he's moving around," she says softly.

Nancy stops in her tracks, beaming, and characteristically unbothered by the annoyed people behind her who have to reroute. Her excitement is palpable and undeniably validating: after all, Nancy is one of the few people who really gets it. She's been in Addison's shoes, and not just because they had regular shopping dates when they lived on the same coast. Nancy is an experienced obstetrician, practicing longer than Addison, whose every step up the career ladder was to the beat of one fetal heart after another. Fetal movements? A kick, an elbow, even the very first stirring? It's as ordinary as shrugging into her white coat or hailing a taxi.

When it's a patient, that is.

When it's your _own_ fetal movements?

There are tears in Nancy's eyes when she looks up from where her two hands meet, almost in the shape of a heart, on the bump where her nephew is growing.

"I'm not over it," Addison admits.

"I figured." Nancy flashes her a smile. "It's your first, after all."

"Does that mean – "

"Nope." Nancy tucks a piece of her short hair behind one ear. "It's just as miraculous every time. No less so with Claire than with Katie."

Addison takes this in, the little flutter of excitement in her chest matching the movements of her unborn son.

"You're having a baby," Nancy says.

"Yeah." Addison draws a deep breath, cupping her hand over her bump. "I am."

"And in the meantime – you have a dog."

To say Nancy isn't exactly a dog person would be an understatement.

"You're back to the dog?"

"I'm just saying. A dollhouse – "

"A trailer," Addison corrects her.

" – is pretty small for two adults and a dog." Nancy pauses. " _Are_ there two adults living there?"

"No." Addison takes her sister-in-law's arm to draw her around the corner, seeking some semblance of privacy in a hospital that often seems to lack it entirely. "Not exactly. … what?" she asks when Nancy just _looks_ at her, not speaking.

"Nothing."

It's never nothing.

"I'm just saying," Nancy continues, predictably, "you seem. . . together."

"You said that this morning."

"You seemed together this morning."

"Nance."

"Addie." Her sister-in-law props a hand on her hip, studying her face for a moment. "You seemed more together, this morning, than you did in New York. . . . the last couple of years, anyway."

There's a long pause. Nancy is her sister. Nancy is her family. And Addison has known her long enough to know she doesn't censor herself . . . but still.

"Moving on," Nancy says airily after a moment, wrapping an arm around Addison's waist and starting to steer her down the hall again, "have we finished discussing the dog?"

"You tell me."

"Mm. I'm not sure. Is he housebroken?"

". . . he has his moments."

Nancy smiles, then her face turns serious.

"Did you say before that he's sick?"

"He's . . . sick," Addison confirms reluctantly. "But he's strong. He's receiving excellent care."

She decides not to mention that Doc's excellent caregiver is currently dating her husband's ex-girlfriend.

And Nancy doesn't pursue it, instead launching into a story about the girls begging John to bring them back a golden retriever puppy from Tokyo.

..

This is fine. It's perfectly normal to juggle a workday, a not particularly tolerant chief of surgery, and more Shepherds than Seattle was really ready for, all here in the same hospital. HIs job is demanding. His patients are waiting.

"Derek!"

. . . and his former best friend is currently following him down the hallway.

"What do you want, Mark?" he asks without turning around.

"I just want to – will you just stop and talk to me for a second?"

"Why?"

"Because I'm your friend," Mark says – bluntly, hilariously, divorced from reality as usual.

And the word _divorce_ reminds him just why Mark is anything but his friend. He stops anyway, mostly to gather himself.

"Look." Mark lowers his voice, taking a step closer. "I'm sorry. About before I didn't know that the baby – that there's an issue, I mean."

 _An issue._ Somehow, the euphemism sounds worse than the tentative diagnosis.

"Interesting." Derek glances at the chart in his hand, heart pounding. "But you did know the baby was mine, didn't you? When you flew out here to – do your damage?"

Mark blinks.

"Go away," Derek says simply.

"Look, I thought you should know. That there were things she hadn't told you. I thought you deserved that."

Derek draws a sharp breath. He's not ready to revisit that day, the claustrophobic on-call room and the way Mark lounged against the bunks, seeming almost . . . excited about what he'd wrought. He only has to close his eyes to see the way Addison shrank back from his anger and his accusations, first defending herself and finally, worst of all, the way she struggled for breath when it all became too much. The way she slumped against him with one hand still curved around her body, protecting their son. He was already sorry by then, but it was still his fault.

His fault, egged on by Mark's appearance, by the confrontation he orchestrated.

Addison—and their son, too—in a hospital bed.

That's what Mark thought he deserved?

"As your friend," Mark says. "I thought you should know."

"I already told you. You're not my friend."

He snaps the chart shut and turns on his heel to walk away.

"Derek!" Mark follows him down the hallway while Derek turns away, stabbing irritatedly at the elevator button. "You're going to forgive me eventually."

He's so sure of himself, Mark. Derek studies his former best friend's face for one silent moment. The elevator doors open, and Derek steps on, Mark still framed in the open doorway.

"Go back to New York, Mark."

"You're saying that's what it would take?" Mark puts out a hand as the elevator doors start to close. "For you to forgive me?"

The doors jerk slightly, a stop-start motion, trying to close. Mark doesn't move.

"Don't risk your hands." Derek steps out of the elevator. "I'll take the stairs."

He gets the feeling, as he pulls open the heavy door to the stairwell, that Mark is still watching him.

..

"They said it _had_ to be a golden retriever. Why a golden retriever? I have no idea," Nancy is saying, Addison trying to figure out how to extricate herself gracefully so she can see at least one patient today . . . when they come across the intern she requested to assist.

"Yang," she says, realizing she may be in for an exhausting afternoon.

Cristina Yang, though, seems distracted, her eyes on Nancy. "You're back? Mc—I mean – "

" _Dr._ Shepherd to you," Nancy says.

"We already have too many of those," Yang mutters. Meredith shoots her a look, then turns back to the gathered Shepherds.

"You're back," Meredith says, the same words but in an impressively neutral tone considering Nancy's first impression.

"I'm back. You must have realized by now that Shepherds are hard to drive off." Nancy raises an eyebrow, glancing toward Addison, who shakes her head with a frown.

"Nancy . . . "

"Sorry." Nancy flashes them both a grin, not looking particularly sorry, rather like an overgrown version of –

"Mommy!" Lilly jogs up, seeming perfectly at home in the hospital, and pats the side of her mother's leather purse. "I can't find my Judy's red outfit."

"And you brought reinforcements this time," Yang says, nodding toward Lilly. "I thought you wanted me to assist on a surgery. A human surgery."

"I did." Addison frowns. "I do."

Lilly seems to realize she's being sized up, meets Yang's gaze and for a moment Addison is pretty sure she's about to witness a staring contest between a rather surly intern and a very small Judy-doll-clutching girl. Thankfully, they're interrupted.

"You didn't wait for me!" Claire bounds up, Judy doll in her hands too and visible pout on her little face. "You _forgot_ me!"

Now Addison has to hide a smile.

"We didn't forget you, honey," Nancy says with a sigh, as Lilly, ever so slightly, sticks her tongue out at her younger sister. "You're supposed to be with Grandma."

"I told her I needed you," Lilly shrugs. "I couldn't find my Judy's red outfit."

"A regular Code Blue. Or – Code Red, I suppose." Nancy shakes her head in Addison's direction, then fishes in her oversized purse. "Here, Lil – is it this one?"

"No." Lilly shakes her head, long braids swinging. "That's _burgundy_ , Mommy."

"Yeah, burgundy," Claire says, cottoning on to the conversation.

Mother and daughters spar briefly over the color wheel before Nancy digs back into her Poppins-sized purse in pursuit of the right outfit.

It's all fairly typical, really unremarkable except that Yang, who Addison has seen take all manner of blood and gore without flinching, is looking at Nancy's small daughters with a combination of horror and fear.

An awkward silence falls over the group.

..

"I hope the girls aren't bothering Addie."

"I'm sure they're not," Derek tells his mother.

What else can he say?

Addison doesn't have much of a gauge for _bother_ , not with their nieces and nephews. More than one holiday at his mother's, in residency, he'd have to peel her away from the children knowing she hadn't slept in 48 hours. She'd be white with exhaustion, her hands trembling, but unable to say no as his sister's children clamored adoringly around her. _It's fine, honey, I'm not that tired_ , she would protest, even when he knew it was a lie.

"Good." His mother looks at him. "She has a way with children."

"She does."

"And soon it will be your own child." His mother's tone is fond, reminiscent even. "You've waited a long time."

He glances at her, confirming for himself that he means the plural _you_ , that this isn't one of the remarks his wife would pounce on as proof that Carolyn Shepherd blamed Addison and only Addison for the lack of children in their marriage.

"Both of you," she says, and he nods.

"It will go quickly," his mother adds.

"The pregnancy?"

"That too." She pauses to smile at him. "Sometimes it feels like yesterday that we were expecting our first."

"Yesterday . . . are you sure about that?" He keeps his tone light, not quite ready to explore the _we_ of that memory. It's not that he doesn't want to talk about his father. He just – he has to be ready, is all. He doesn't like surprises.

"Are you calling your mother old?"

"Never," he assures her, and his mother pats his hand.

"Good. Now, I know you need to work. Why don't you show me to the cafeteria, and I'll have a cup of tea while I wait."

With one hand, she indicates her old leather pocketbook, and Derek has to hide a smile. Of course his mother has her own teabags stashed in there, and plans only to ask for a cup of hot water in the cafeteria.

Some things don't change.

..

Nancy's youngest is the one to break the increasingly awkward silence.

"You're pretty," Claire says, without warning, gazing up at Meredith with interest.

". . . thank you." Meredith smiles down at her. "So are you."

Yang looks like she's fighting back another wave of nausea.

"'Cause you look like my Judy doll," Claire continues, beaming. "See?" She thrusts the little rubber doll – clad in one navy high heel, a faintly wrinkled gauzy looking skirt, and nothing else – toward Meredith.

Nancy, next to Addison, is doing an admirable job of stifling her laughter. It's true that the doll has long, wavy, dark blonde hair and there's something familiar about the tilt of her green doe eyes too.

"Oh, is that doctor Judy?" Meredith inquires politely, taking it in stride.

 _I guess once you've had your ex-boyfriend's wife faint on you from a secret pregnancy, nothing really throws you._

"Nuh-uh." Claire shakes her head, dark curls swinging, and holds the doll even higher. "It's _Stewardess_ Judy, just her clothes fell off."

"I guess the two of you do have something in common," Yang murmurs to Meredith, who shoots a glare at her, but looks like she's fighting amusement nonetheless.

Nancy clears her throat. "Girls – "

" _Girls_ ," another voice repeats before Nancy can continue. "Girls, who are not doctors, in the hospital, with my interns, when my _interns_ should be working."

"Sorry," Addison says, glancing at Miranda Bailey.

"Mm." Miranda doesn't look upset, not really. But Addison would never point that out; pregnancy doesn't make a woman soft.

Just like children don't make doctors soft.

Not at all.

Then Nancy is re-introducing herself with a callback to the uterus didelphys patient, Miranda's expression making clear she's putting two and two together. She looks down at the girls.

"So these are – "

"Derek's nieces," Addison supplies.

"Addie's too," Nancy corrects loyally, and Addison feels tears pricking her eyes.

(Not because pregnancy is making her soft, though.)

"Family," Miranda muses. "It's a beautiful thing, family. Do you have work to do?" she demands, her tone changing, turning on Yang and Meredith. "Do you need me to _find_ work for you to do?"

And then Miranda's pager goes off.

"You are _not_ saved by the bell," she tells her interns firmly, gesturing with said pager, before taking her leave with a gust of _busy_ in her wake.

Nancy looks thoughtful, adjusting one of Lilly's braids. "Do you ever miss being an intern?" she asks Addison.

"Well . . . " Claire is lounging against Addison's legs now, attempting to put her Judy doll in some sort of acrobatic split that Yang seems to find very amusing.

"Do you have a boyfriend?" Lilly asks suddenly, and all Addison can do is pray it's directed at Yang.

It is, but then –

"Why," Yang quips, "are you interested?"

Lilly looks confused.

"Cristina." Meredith shakes her head.

"No, I'm just wondering. It's Burke, isn't it? Because I said yes." She turns to Meredith. "That's why. It's _that_ obvious."

"It's not."

"It must be." Yang points at Lilly, who is gazing back serenely from much closer to the floor. "Why did she ask if I have a boyfriend? Why isn't she asking about my running whip stitch?" Yang demands.

"She's seven," Nancy offers. "She doesn't care about running whip stitches."

"I cared about running whip stitches when I was seven," Yang mutters.

"And on that note . . ." Meredith checks her pager. "I really should go. It was nice meeting you," she says, directing her words to Lilly and Claire. Claire beams up at her, waving her Judy doll in farewell.

"What do you know. My daughter has the same taste as my brother," Nancy says very quietly, making a face.

"Nancy . . . " Addison shakes her head.

"I'm just saying!"

"Do you have a case for me? I can ask Bailey for a new assignment . . . ." Yang sounds so hopeful Addison almost feels sorry for her.

"I do. I'll see _you_ later," she says pointedly, waiting until Nancy and the girls are gone before turning back to her intern.

Her sometimes surly, not very pleased looking, but undeniably smart intern.

"Dr. Yang . . . ."

She waits for the other woman to look up.

". . . I care about your running whip stitch," Addison says gently.

Yang looks surprised, a little confused. "You do? Um . . . thanks."

"Don't mention it. Oh, and Yang? That running whip stitch had better be flawless, or I'm giving your surgery to Karev."

The intern's mouth drops into an _o._

It's a strategic threat, really. Karev has proven his mettle with her delicate patients and Yang is gifted, if not exactly tender. Either way, Addison wins.

Who says a woman can't be chief of surgery?

..

With Yang prepping her patient, Addison has time to drop back to her office, take a quick break from the shoes she's not giving up any time soon but that _occasionally_ don't feel that great by midday.

Massaging the sole of one stockinged foot, she finds herself a little embarrassed to admit how nice it would be to turn the job over to her husband. He's _good_ , a facet of how long he's known her – and her feet – and those surgeon's hands.

She pauses, a little chill running through her.

 _Hello, second trimester, I almost forgot about you._

But there's no time for that. She has an arch to support, a surgery to perform, an intern to teach, and a number of in-laws to manage.

She has a followup conversation with her mother-in-law, as yet unscheduled.

 _There was something I wanted to give you, but it's . . . well. It's private._

She's curious.

She's not worried.

Okay, fine, she's a little worried.

It's not just her mother-in-law's decidedly old fashioned parenting that makes her wary of the impending gift. There's a whole history of gifts there like the rest of the decade and a half she's been knitted up in this family.

Lots of gifts.

Carolyn is generous, in her way. She's just also . . . well, she's Carolyn. Her gifts _say_ something. How to count some of the more memorable ones?

 **One.** _The Chia Pet._ What was she saying about dated gifts? She took this one as a sign of her mother-in-law's increasing desperation when it came to Addison's unproductive uterus: she was willing to spend money on a brand name terracotta nightmare just to plant the seed – pun intended – that Addison could actually keep a living thing alive. (And yes, she is and was then a wildly successful surgeon but _keep a living thing alive_ has always been baby-based for Carolyn, and not her patients' babies either.) She stashed it in the basement, then panicked that the damp soil would actually make the damn thing grow and had Seymour-esque nightmares off and on for weeks. She still sent a thank-you note though, of course.

 **Two.** _The gloves._ White cotton gloves – to sleep in, "so you can stop spending so much money on hand lotion." Except the joke was on Carolyn there, because the gloves were actually a lovely addition to her nighttime moisturizing routine – they kept the so-much-money lotion on her hands and allowing her to use, and therefore spend, even more each night.

 **Three.** _The goldfish._ See chia pet: except she gave this one to one of her nieces instead of stashing it in the basement. She may not have been maternal, at least in Carolyn's eyes, but she wasn't a fish murderer either.

 **Four.** _The Knitting for Dummies book_. Self explanatory. Addison is no dummy, but she's also not a knitter. When Derek tried to brush it off – _knitting is good for surgical dexterity_ – Carolyn just laughed it off. _Not everything is about being a surgeon_ , she said, and that was proof, for a second-year-resident Addison, that her mother-in-law just didn't get it. At all.

 **Five.** _The Baking for Dummies book._ See above. "Baking is scientific, dear!"

 **Six.** _The Cooking for Dummies book_. Okay, the theme is pretty clear. Is it any wonder that, despite there being affection on both sides, Addison couldn't help but think her mother in law saw her as, well . . . a dummy?

 **Seven** ** _._** _The scrunchie._ They were "overpriced" in stores, according to her mother in law, and it was the nineties. Oh god, was it ever the nineties. So Carolyn sewed her own and Addison received one at Christmas crafted from a rather sturdy looking corduroy – slightly lumpy, handmade, and when she commented on the interesting fabric was told it was from a pair of Derek's childhood pants. And then Nancy caught her eye across the table and neither of them could hide their laughter even when Carolyn was cross about it. To make up for it, she had to wear the brown lumpy scrunchy in her hair all evening, producing a particularly unflattering series of photographs. Speaking of which . . .

 **Eight.** _The framed picture._ She'll go to her grave refusing to budge on this one, though she and her husband argued back and forth about it for years. Derek swore up and down that he loved the picture and Addison was being ridiculous, but a year into their marriage Carolyn framed a picture of the two of them and presented it to Addison. And it was a lovely picture, a candid from the previous summer. Except Addison's eyes were half closed, and not in beachy ecstasy but more in _a mosquito just landed on my nose_ non-ecstasy. There was sand on her legs. Not sexy sand either. Sand that looked, in the light of this particular picture, like she had particularly hirsute calves. And then there was her salt-frizzed hair. "You two look so happy!" was what Carolyn said and of course Derek took her side. (And Derek looked beachy-breezy and handsome. Her sole consolation was that her beachy-breeze, handsome husband was beaming at his frizzy, sandy, squinty wife in the picture, so . . . at least there was that.)

 **Nine.** _The Christmas robe._ Thick and sturdy – but not, thank goodness, made from a pair of her husband's old pants – it was a "dressing gown," naturally, "so that you won't get cold in the family room." It might as well have been chain mail, several sizes too big and covering enough skin that she could have survived an arctic Christmas. When Derek snickered she kicked him under the table and when he didn't sufficiently defend her, threatened to wear that robe every night at home until he made it up to her. (He did, thank goodness, because that was one threat she had no interest in carrying out.)

 **Ten.** _The Sewing for Dummies Book_. Well, you get the idea.

..

She's _keeping busy_ , purposefully, before they have to leave for the fetal echo.

There's the case she assigned to Yan; they'll operate in the morning but she's always taken a breath before. Some headspace, to think through her plan.

There's little Laura Grey-Thompson, whose delicate condition still needs monitoring.

And of course, there's her own breakfast-loving baby who's not a patient at all, and no one needs to know that she sometimes ducks into an empty call room or her own office, when things are quiet, just to check in.

"Everything's going to be okay." She says it very softly, but out loud, resting a palm against the swell of her belly as she does. Somehow it feels different every time. "It's just a test," she tells the baby, "like the other ultrasounds, and you aced those. So don't worry, okay? Just – do your best." She pauses. "You come from excellent test taking stock."

And then her phone rings for the third time and she's already in an empty call room, so she flips it open.

Why not?

 _Children in the hospital, family reunions, leaving in the middle of the afternoon for fetal testing, and taking calls from friends. Might as well really go for employee of the month today._

"Finally!" Savvy sounds as impatient as she's heard her.

"I was working."

"Well, so was I, Addie, but you can't text me _everything is coming to a head_ and then not follow up. That's just _cruel_."

She has a point.

And so, drawing one long, deep breath, she fills her best friend in on the last twenty-four hours, starting with unexpected descend of the additional Shepherds, and leading to the hotel sleepover and finally the farcical showdown at the elevator bank this morning."

"Slow down, Ad, I can't keep up."

"Well, neither can I." She pauses. "Where was I?"

"Mark and the elevators."

"Right." Addison sighs, checks her pager – nothing. Apparently the universe knew she needed some best friend time.

. . . and then she tells the rest of the story.

"So they're all still there. Nancy too?"

"Yeah. Derek has been taking it pretty well, considering." Addison pauses, shaping her hand around her bump. She's waiting to get tired of this – just touching it, mapping it, but it hasn't happened yet. Not even close.

"Considering Nancy drives him crazy?" Savvy finishes the sentence for her.

"That's putting it mildly."

"Addie."

"Hm?"

"Nancy drives Derek crazy."

"I know."

"But she's there, in Seattle, driving him crazy."

Addison moves her hand slightly, smiling as she feels movement, then pulls her attention back to the call. "I know, Sav."

"She's _t_ _here_ , in Seattle," Savvy repeats, and Addison gets the sense she's winding up for one of her closings, "why? Why is she there?"

Scratch that. Not a closing, a cross examination.

"Because Derek called her," Addison says, confused. "I already told you. He asked her to come."

"He asked her to come!" Savvy repeats triumphantly. "Even though she drives him crazy, he sacrificed his sanity . . . why?"

"Sav – "

"For you."

Addison is quiet for a moment, processing.

"I rest my case," Savvy says after a moment.

"You told me lawyers don't really say that."

"I'm not a lawyer right now. I'm a friend. I'm your best friend, and best friends do say it."

She takes it in.

"Sav . . . I miss you."

"I miss you too, Addie." She pauses. "And so does Derek, it seems."

 _He doesn't have to miss me,_ she almost says. _He can have me_.

Except he can't.

And she knows this, because she was the one who put the brakes on it, who told him they couldn't fall back into bed or back into what passed for a routine in their Seattle life. Who told him he had to choose her, take action, _do_ something.

Which is all well and good, she's realizing now.

As long as she doesn't miss it when he does.

..

"So this is your office."

"This is my office." Addison glances around. "It's not much," she adds modestly.

It's bigger than Derek's, but who's counting?

Her mother-in-law asked to see it, and since this is a recordbreaking day in her career where she's done so little work she might as well be one of the overwatered plants in the hospital solarium, of course she gave her the not-so-grand tour.

She has an ulterior motive, anyway.

(Distraction.)

They'll have to leave for the fetal echo in less than an hour, Derek's with a patient, and even though she promised the baby everything would be okay . . . she could use a little distraction.

"That's a nice picture," Carolyn says, studying the frame on Addison's bookshelves.

It's the same frame she had on her shelves in her Manhattan office, shipped along with the rest of her things. Her favorite gold skirt from two seasons ago, her favorite husband on her arm, they're not wearing scrubs but their heads are inclined toward each other, as in sync as if they were conducting a joint surgery. They're together and they look . . . well, they look happy.

What's that Nancy said?

 _You seemed more together, this morning, than you did in New York. . . . the last couple of years, anyway._

Addison swallows hard. "Yeah, well . . . the skirt," she says lamely.

"It's a nice skirt." Carolyn looks pensive. "I hope you didn't pay full price for it, Addie, I'm certain I could have made the same one with my eyes closed. I still have the gold fabric I used for Amy's mermaid costume."

. . . in 1976.

"I wish I'd known," she says as sincerely as she can manage, because her mother-in-law may be enthusiastic about her pregnancy, forgiving of how she hurt her son . . . but she's still Carolyn Shepherd.

"Well. You'll think of it next time, I'm sure." Carolyn looks around the office for another moment while Addison debates whether she herself or this pause is the more pregnant one.

"I wanted to give you something," her mother-in-law begins, and Addison exhales with sheer relief.

Time to get it over with.

A burlap muumuu to hide her _delicate condition._

An all expenses paid trip to (free) summer bible camp for her heathen child.

Or maybe another book: _Cheating Daughters-in-Law and the Stupid Sons who Forgive Them_ , perhaps. Or a guide to geriatric childbirth, complete with vintage advice for keeping "Daddy" comfortable in the waiting room with a cigar while she labors all alone.

How bad could it be?

"Why don't you sit down, Addie."

. . . oh. So _that_ bad.

..

He has nothing to feel guilty about.

Not when it comes to Mark. Not ever when it comes to Mark.

Mark is the one who should feel guilty.

But _Mark_ is a sociopath.

Everyone knows that.

(Sociopaths maybe wouldn't have looked at him in the hotel room the way Mark did, something even more than empathy clouding his face, when Derek finally burst out with the news about their baby.)

But that's not important. He has one more patient before they leave for the fetal echo, and that's what's important.

He concentrates on that and lets the rest of it fall away.

..

Seated on one side of the couch – a stiff faux-velvet she never would have selected, but adulteress-beggars can't be choosers when they desperately need a Seattle job – and her mother-in-law on the other, Addison waits.

"Addie."

She looks up.

"I have something to give you. But I want to tell you something first."

"Okay," she says cautiously. "I'm listening."

"I told you I was tired, when I was carrying Derek." Carolyn's expression turns fond, perhaps remembering her pregnancy with her only son. "But I was tired before that. I was very tired."

Addison touches the clasp on her bracelet, not sure where this was going.

"I had three little girls, all in stairstep. Nancy had hip dysplasia, you remember that? She was my breech baby, and she was stuck in that awful brace. It's what made her want to be an OB, you know. And it was rough." She exhales audibly. "It was rough, and Christopher was my rock. Every moment of it, he was there."

Addison nods, recognizing the tone in her mother-in-law's voice when she talks about Derek's father. Long before Addison was the one with the perfect husband . . . Carolyn was the one with the perfect husband. Christopher, as she's heard over the years, was perfect. She's not surprised he was a rock during the stressful early years of their family.

"And then things got better with the girls," Carolyn continues. "Nancy stopped fighting the brace every night and Kate stopped pulling her hair when no one was looking and Lizzie suddenly remembered she'd been toilet trained all along. Things got better," she repeats, "but I was . . . distracted. I'd forgotten what it was like for things to be better."

Addison just listens.

"I was distracted, and Chris was my rock, when things were rough. And then when things were better, he was back on the road, trying to build the business."

Addison nods, recognizes the rhythms of their early marriage from other stories.

"He was gone almost every week. Before that, we were always busy, but we used to make time. Sit down when our schedules allowed it, share a slice of cake. Even if I was nursing a baby between bites, I always made the time. But we were busy, and the children were better, and it got so the only time we saw each other we were passing one of the children back and forth or I was packing his suitcase. Or unpacking it." She pauses. "That's how I saw it."

Neither of them speaks for a moment.

"I didn't ask," Carolyn says firmly. "Things were different, then, not like you young people, but I didn't have to ask. Maybe I already knew."

Addison has never heard this before, or anything like it. Christopher Shepherd lived on in stories every year of her life with this family, and in all of them . . . he was perfect.

"And Chris didn't ask. But he must have known, too. It . . . wasn't good," she says after a moment, and it's the closest Addison has heard in more than sixteen years to a shadow in the elder Shepherds' marriage.

But they must have been married a decade and a half after that, or close to it. Things must have improved.

"How did you fix it?" she asks quietly.

Carolyn is silent for a long breath and there's a moment Addison is suddenly terrified she's misunderstood, read too much into it – but then her mother in law gives her a knowing look.

"Christopher's mother took all three girls for a whole weekend—Nancy was healed by then and oh, was she a handful, like four of Lilly and Claire. But it was her idea, Mother Shepherd's idea. She said Chris and I seemed _tired_ and, well . . . that's as close as she came to talking about it. You asked how we fixed it," Carolyn repeats. "We had to learn to trust each other again. It takes two people to break down a marriage and it takes at least two to build it back up again."

Addison finds herself touching her rings as she listens, twisting them around her finger.

"Derek doesn't know about – all of that. I never told him." Carolyn clears her throat. "Maybe it's my fault he sees things the way he does, so black and white. It was so important to me to build up Christopher after he died. I wanted the children to have good memories. I never wanted them to question any of it. It was all we had."

She pauses, fussing a little with the upholstery on the armchair. Addison gets the sense she's pulling herself back together. When her mother-in-law looks up again, her expression is resolute.

"But if not for that . . . indiscretion, then Derek wouldn't be here at all."

Addison takes this in, and Carolyn nods, affirming it.

"With my mother-in-law watching the girls, Chris and I were able to . . . get reacquainted and, well," she smiles suddenly, looking quite a bit younger when she does. "Derek was born about nine and a half months later."

The office goes quiet again, the click of the industrial clock the only sound in the room.

"He was a surprise," Carolyn says, a smile playing around her lips. "But then so was Lizzie. I don't care what the church or anyone else says, you can't plan a family. You can plan . . . but you can't decide. It's the wrong time or it's too much work or you're too young –"

Addison can't help expelling a little puff of air, thinking of her own _lack_ of youth, and her mother-in-law doesn't miss it.

"If you were young, you'd have another set of problems." Carolyn looks pensive. "You know, I was 42 when I was pregnant with Amy."

The math adds up, but she had forgotten this.

"I thought I was finished having babies, but . . . we plan, and God laughs, because I was pregnant again with four children at home, the youngest already seven, and the doctors made me feel terrible. I half expected her to be born with three heads but she popped out after what, less than an hour of labor, just as fat and red and healthy as all the others. Louder," Carolyn adds, smiling fondly, "but just as healthy."

There's a pause.

Is this what her mother-in-law wanted to give her?

Her present?

A glimpse of a marriage more real than fantasy . . . an admission of imperfection?

 _I understand_ , Carolyn said this morning, when Addison tried to explain how she could no longer regret her mistake, hurtful though it was. Not when a new life grew out of it.

She understood more than Addison could have realized at the time.

It's as inexpensive a present as her mother-in-law has ever given her, typical – and priceless, all at the same time. She studies the fabric of the couch to avoid eye contact, embarrassed about the tears in her eyes.

"Addie."

She looks up.

"Do you want your present?"

"That . . . wasn't my present?" she asks faintly.

Carolyn laughs – a hearty, full-throated laugh. "Oh, Addie, you must have had a sadder Christmas out here than I could have imagined if you thought _that_ was a present."

The reminders – _sad_ and _Christmas_ – sting, but not badly. Like so many other things, it's muted by what happened next. The baby, neither planned nor expected.

 _We plan, and God laughs._

Carolyn hands her a brown paper bag, encouraging her to open it, and Addison pulls out . . . a necklace. Dark blue beads, not quite evenly sized, on a thick string that looks like it's been repaired more than once. Tentatively, she rubs her thumb over one; the texture is tough, rubbery. A little rough.

"Christopher bought it for me when I told him we were expecting our first baby." Carolyn's eyes are faraway, reminiscent. "It was a cheap old thing, not that I would have told him that, but we had no money then. Chris was trying to get the store running, cleaning office buildings at night, and I was working two jobs to put myself through nursing school. But he bought me this. And it ended up coming in handy, because the babies gnawed on it – first Lizzie and then Kate and all the others too, and what do you now, now they sell necklaces that look just like these for outrageous prices . . . thirty dollars, even."

Her tone makes it clear what she thinks of this kind of indulgence. But in spite of herself, Addison is touched. But before she can express her thanks, her mother in law is handing her something else.

"I brought you this too," she says, and Addison takes it from her hand.

It's a faded photograph on the thin paper they were printed on then, fragile edges a little crumbled from the passage of time. One of the corners is slightly torn, but the picture is clear: an unmistakeable young Carolyn, her hair dark instead of grey, her face soft and youthful against what looks like the same rocking chair Addison has seen for years in the Shepherd home. The younger image of Carolyn is wearing what looks like a striped housecoat, but it hangs almost elegantly on her slimmer body – Addison could blink and see Kate or Lizzie, easily. She looks warm and maternal, not matronly, and with good reason: she's beaming down at a plump sleeper-clad baby in her arms who is – yes, she looks a little more closely – stuffing that very same necklace into its mouth.

"Is that Lizzie?"

"It's Derek, actually." Her mother-in-law looks fondly at the picture as if she's saying goodbye, then pats the necklace Addison is still holding.

"Here," she says.

Addison leans down, Carolyn reaches up, and she carefully places the string of beads around her neck, then helps her daughter-in-law pull her long hair out of the necklace.

When she sits up, there are tears in her eyes.

And she's not the only one.

"It's not much," Carolyn says after a moment, clearing her throat.

It doesn't seem like enough, but she says it anyway:

"I love it."

..

They meet in the lobby just like they planned, Nancy clad in her trench coat and prepared to accompany them.

Which is why she came.

It makes perfect sense.

And yet . . .

"Are you sure?" Addison finds herself asking.

"I'm coming with you." Nancy glances at Addison. "I planned to come."

"But what about – "

"Mom will watch the girls."

"The space needle," Derek proposes, and his mother frowns, the set of her face very much spelling out _tourist trap_ and _admissions fees_.

". . . or you can take them back to the hotel and play Judy dolls. I'll drop you off and meet _you_ ," Nancy gestures to Derek and Addison, "at the place."

Derek and Addison exchange a glance.

There are no words, but somehow . . . consensus, nonetheless.

"Actually," Addison glances at Derek, who nods encouragingly, and then turns back to her sister-in-law: "maybe this would be a good time for you to take the girls to the space needle."

Nancy tilts her head. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah." Addison tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, her fingers brushing the string of blue beads around her neck. "I'm so glad you came, Nance, and I appreciate everything. And we'll see you after. But yeah . . . I'm sure."

..

The fetal echo is in the same high-rise building as Melissa's office, but that's where the similarity ends. Derek and Addison follow signs to the pediatric cardiology practice, a few floors away. It's bright, with wide windows overlooking the city skyline and colorful murals on the walls.

Clear effort has been taken to make the space cheerful for the patients and their families, some of whom are also waiting.

There's a pale, big-eyed toddler is turning listlessly at the pages of a picture book.

Another little girl about the same size as Claire, with feathery blonde hair, is leaning on a man who must be her father. They both look exhausted. "I know," he's saying quietly as they pass, "but you need to rest."

At reception, a woman wearing an infant in a carrier against her chest is leaning on the counter. Derek picks up snatches of conversation as they walk by. ". . . the second surgery," she's saying, "but his doctor said she wanted him – "

 _The second surgery._

The elevator doors open and a man pushing a wheelchair emerges, holding a scowling preteen with a handheld video game on her lap.

". . . another stupid appointment," Derek hears her complaining.

He swallows hard, reminded of how much more stressful this could be. How much more stressful it _is_ , for these families. Wordlessly, Addison squeezes his hand, and he can tell she's thinking the same thing he is.

..

 _It's just another test._

Just another hour on her back, staring up at the ceiling, waiting for news.

A different ceiling. There's a skylight cut into it, the first thing she notices, with a bluer sky than she's seen in Seattle—but wait, they're on the twenty-sixth floor of a high rise with two dozen floors above them, so it can't be a skylight.

It's painted on, she realizes, feeling a little foolish.

Painted on and so lifelike she almost believed it.

That, combined with the brightly painted tigers on the opposite wall, each cheerfully holding a stethoscope, is enough to make her want to cry.

Derek folds his fingers through hers, his other hand resting at the top of her head. Slowly, he strokes her hair, apparently realizing what she's feeling, if not why.

And then together, they wait.

Addison alternates watching the flickering black and white image on the screen and the glittering blue skylight, and then her husband's face, pursed with concentration.

Back to the screen.

Back to the skylight, tears gathering in her eyes, though she's not sure why.

Back to her husband, who is gently wiping her cheeks.

And back to the screen.

It's long, longer than any other ultrasound.

 _What are you seeing_ , she wants to scream, _just tell_ me, but she doesn't.

She doesn't try to take the wand, either.

She just lies there, feeling the weight of her body holding her down, the pressure of the machine, the blue light above her, the rubbery, slightly rough feeling of the necklace against her skull. And Derek's hand, warm and firm in hers.

The test is long.

The test is pressure in the same spot, and then moving slightly; it's not comfortable but it's fine. It's just . . . long.

It goes on and on.

 _What are you seeing._

 _Just tell me._

This is why Melissa said she preferred for her patients not to have fetal echos if they can help it. She knows this. She knows it.

But how could she be anywhere but here?

 _What are you seeing._

 _Just tell me!_

And then, finally, the sonographer is talking to them.

"Just tell me." Addison grabs onto her husband's arm, not sure which one of them is lifting her up, helping her sit.

His face tells her without words.

It's still there.

The fake skylight burns her eyes.

"Addie," Derek is saying quietly. "Addie, just listen."

So she does.

..

She's on the table again, but she's sitting this time, fully dressed, Derek next to her.

"Melissa?" Addison glances at her husband when the door opens. "I was waiting for the paperwork. I thought we'd have to go to your office."

"Most patients do. But hey." Melissa raises her eyebrows. "I like the exercise. I took the stairs," she adds, unnecessarily.

". . . and you thought I'd be freaking out," Addison supplies.

"No comment." Melissa studies her, hand on hip. "But you're not freaking out."

"I'm not freaking out." Addison glances at Derek, who tightens his grip on her shoulder. It feels sturdy underneath his palm. Strong. If anything, he's drawing strength from her, not the other way around. Or maybe it's both, and he doesn't have to choose.

 _Marriage is a compromise. You know, it's a give and take._

"So, as you saw . . . at this point, it's just north of two millimeters." Melissa taps the ultrasound screen with its frozen image of their son's beating heart. "It's still there, but the size is reassuring. At this size, there's a sixty percent chance it will close up on its own by the time he's born. An eighty-five percent chance it will be closed by his second birthday."

Addison and Derek exchange a glance.

"What happens next?" Melissa asks, rhetorically, so they don't have to. "We keep monitoring him, we keep an eye out, but there's no reason to assume surgical intervention at this point. In fact . . . it's very unlikely."

Derek lets out the breath he forgot he was holding. He knew this, he's read the numbers, of course he has, but there's something different when it comes from Melissa and not his own late-night, keep-it-away-from-Addison research.

(Not that he's not aware she's been doing her own, of course. It's the kind of thing you don't mention, even though you know.)

"Shepherds . . . this is good news." Melissa smiles at them. "It's still there, it's not closed, yet, but still . . . good news."

"Good news," Addison echoes. She turns her face up to Derek, who pulls her close without thinking about it first. His other hand still rests on the spot where their son is growing and for one moment—long but all too short at the same time—three hearts beat as one.

Then Melissa clears her throat, and they move apart, Addison blushing a little. Derek moves a loose strand of hair away from her face with his free hand, never taking his other hand off their baby.

 _Good news._

"So if there's nothing else, I'll see you in . . . a week and a half," Melissa says, consulting her notes, "for your second anatomy scan. And, guys – "

They both look at her.

"Congratulations," she says simply.

They both thank her, but they're distracted, hardly noticing when she closes the door behind her. Each of them has a hand on the swell of the pregnancy now, their attention fully taken.

"I knew you could do it," Addison whispers, cupping the bump, her thumb moving back and forth in a rhythm he knows by heart. Something tells him their son will learn that rhythm just as well. Then his wife is looking up at him, her eyes glistening. "He's a good test taker."

"He takes after you."

"He takes after both of us."

They take a moment to enjoy this.

"He's strong. You're strong," Derek says, directing the second iteration toward the space where their son is growing. "You're so strong."

"And he's moving." Addison places her hand over his and moves it, carefully. "See?"

Somehow, it's just as incredible as each time.

"He kicked me." Derek looks at her with wonder. "Just now. You think the echo bothered him?" he asks, a little worried.

(It's not medical. Not now, not today. It's parental, and that's all there is to it. And he knows his wife would agree.)

"No." Addison cups his hand again, moving it slightly so he can keep feeling the reassuring pressure of their son's movements. "I think he's saying hello."

"Yeah?" He glances at her and she laughs a little, her expression just a touch self-conscious.

"Yeah," she says.

"Okay, then." He applies the gentlest pressure he can, encouraged by Addison, and a fluttering kick fills his palm. "Hello to you too," he says quietly.

..

 _Good news._

But it's better than good. Even though it's _still there._

It doesn't make sense, not really. They're Addison and Derek and they don't usually accept any results that are less than perfect.

Except somehow –

"He's perfect," Derek says.

He's right, and he's not.

There's something better than perfect. This, she's learned.

This, she knows.

 _Getting better_ is better than perfect.

 _Improving._

 _Fighting._

 _Trying._

Perfect is stasis. Perfect could be the moment before it falls apart.

But improvement?

That's not stasis.

Improvement . . . is a journey. A step in the right direction.

She opens her mouth to try to expression this, but finds she can't form the words. The rushing pulse of the baby's heartbeat, that reassuring sound, is still echoing in her head. A whole career filled with fetal heartbeats and somehow this one sounds completely different, every time, every beat a miracle.

One look at her husband's face and she knows he gets it.

..

There's a lightness in the air as they wait for the elevator. A sense of joint relief, and something else too. As if permission has been granted to be excited again. Derek is leaning slightly against the wall, something about his posture making him look young enough to be the medical student who caught her eye. Or the intern who could make her laugh with just a look, even on her longest days.

It's the results of the fetal echo.

But it's more than that too.

Distractedly, she fingers the strand of beads around her neck. Some of it is tucked into her collar and she adjusts it, the rubbery material rough-smooth against her thumb.

It doesn't feel cheap anymore.

"The rain stopped," she says, pausing as they approach the wide glass doors in the lobby.

"The rain did stop." Derek is watching her. "New necklace?" he asks, gesturing to the string of beads around her neck.

"Yeah. Well, your mom gave it to me. Today."

"It's from Mom?"

Lightly, he touches the beads and she just nods, a little self-conscious.

"That's nice of you to wear it," he says.

"I like it," she says, her throat feeling tight.

"So she finally gave you a present you like?" He raises an eyebrow. "Miracles never cease."

Addison nods. "Actually, she gave me something even better than that."

"Yeah?" He smiles at her. "What was that?"

". . . hope," she says simply.

And she tucks a hand into the crook of her husband's arm before he can say anything else, her other hand resting on the bump where their son is growing, so that all three of them are connected as they walk out into the unlikely sunlight.

* * *

 _To be continued next week. I love hearing your thoughts, so I hope you'll review and let me know while I give my tired fingers a much-needed rest. There's still a lot of Sheplet pregnancy to go - you can expect some time jumps in the future, but the Shepherds' visit to Seattle isn't over yet. After all, Carolyn hasn't gotten to meet their friends yet . . . so stay tuned, and I'll see you next Sunday. xoxo_


	31. Seeing the Light

**A/N:** Now I can officially say it: **Happy QPQ Sunday!** Nothing like hitting that deadline two weeks in a row. If you're just tuning back in, this is the third chapter in two weeks, so make sure you're caught up. Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed so generously. I'm going to update my other WIPs too, but for now I hope you enjoy another ridiculously long chapter of QPQ.

PS - you may recognize some lines from PP that I never liked in the episode, but decided to repurpose for good instead of evil.

* * *

 _ **Seeing the Light**_

Gestational Age: Nineteen weeks, five days  
Baby is the Size of a: mango (do they make mango muffins? … they should make mango muffins)  
Number of Shepherds in Seattle this week: more than one hospital can contain  
Number of Baseball-Sized Cafeteria Muffins Baby Has Consumed this Week: fewer than baby's mother would prefer  
Calories Per Baseball-Sized Muffin: never mind  
Remaining Days to the Midpoint of Pregnancy: two  
Fetal Echo News: relieving  
So Things Are: stable  
But Things Are Not: static  
And in Baby's Mother's Experience, Things in Seattle Tend to Be: unpredictable

..

Post-echo, the mood of sheer relief colors the rest of the day.

The relief itself is intimate enough that a group celebration or even acknowledgement feels wrong, but the general lightness seems nonetheless to spread over everything they touch.

There's an extra spring in her step as she strides through the hospital on almost-as-high-as-usual heels.

And she could swear Derek looks almost _jaunty_ as he makes his way toward a patient's room.

Even the sight of Mark on the catwalk, standing just a little too close to a blonde resident – and then snapping to attention as the Chief passes – can't dampen either of their spirits.

 _Improving_ , that's the word of the day.

And how.

..

Nancy knows enough of the results to hug her, hard, when they reconvene for a harborside dinner. The girls are full of stories about their Seattle tourist afternoon, and Carolyn is tired enough from helping to wrangle them that she doesn't ask questions.

Addison does catch her mother-in-law looking at the blue-beaded necklace around her neck—they exchange a private glance of understanding.

" … and ice cream, too." Lilly is finishing a long story, and draws breath she was apparently holding through the climax.

Derek is smiling at her. It's pleasantly balmy by the water, not like the densely humid summer they left behind in Manhattan. A slow breeze moves her hair as she leans back in the cushioned chair, one hand resting on her bump.

 _I could get used to this._

The thought flashes through her mind before she can analyze it.

And then the baby is kicking, Lilly and Claire both delighting in feeling it to the point that they're actually willing to take turns.

"It's nice here," Nancy says, sipping her after-dinner espresso, summing things up rather well.

Addison is feeling sated and peaceful, full from delicious seafood and the fresh bread she's fairly certain was her breakfast-loving baby's idea.

Across the tables, Carolyn is listening to Lilly sleepily plan the next morning's hotel breakfast … and looking rather tired herself. Claire is already asleep on Derek's lap, her head lolling against his chest. Addison feels that warm curl of hope again, of expectation: _one day soon, that's going to be our baby._

" … it's nice," she says simply, echoing Nancy, since no words can truly make her point anyway.

..

After dinner plans are anything but simple, though. Once they've loaded their two sleepy nieces, plus Nancy and Carolyn, in the car back to the hotel, Derek and Addison are alone.

Just the two of them.

Well: two surgeons, one (unborn) baby, two overnight bags, one car.

… and one good-sized elephant in the room.

Derek opens the passenger side door for her, waits until she's settled, pulling the seat belt carefully around her new shape and looking over at him.

And then he turns over the ignition.

And then he turns to her.

"Where, uh, where am I taking you?"

 _Oh, if only the answer were simple._

He seems to get that and his tone lightens: "Left side? Right side?" he asks instead, in passably impatient imitation of a thousand shared cab rides.

They're both smiling at this and then the car falls silent.

"I'd like to check on Doc," Derek says finally.

"Of course. He's been – "

" – the same, says the dog walker," he assures her. "He might be a little disappointed Lilly and Claire won't be back to fuss over him, though."

"I think he'll be happy to see you," she says.

"Yeah." He looks at the wheel for a moment, then back at her. "Are you – do you want to go with me?"

His face is very young in the low seaside light and for a moment she's back on a sunny cobbled path, canvas backpack slung over her shoulder, looking at her lab partner of two weeks instead of her husband of almost twelve years. _Hey, Addison … we could study together,_ he said with that same boyish smile, one part bashful to one part hopeful to one part I-already-know-you-want-to. She recalls that she smiled back, but she made him work for it. _We could_ , she said neutrally. After only two weeks, she had a feeling from his expression that he knew exactly what she meant. So he took a deep breath and tried again: _Do you, um, do you want to study together?_

She said yes.

Now here they are, sixteen—almost seventeen—years later, in the jeep he bought without her, another question hanging in the air.

And somehow the answer feels almost as important as that long-ago summer afternoon. If she hadn't said _yes_ then, none of them would be here now.

She draws a deep breath.

..

He recognizes the inhale that proceeds something – a phrase, a speech – to which she's had to give some thought.

(You don't spend sixteen years with someone and _not_ notice that the way they breathe can say as much as the words they speak.)

"I'd like to go with you," she says carefully, her fingers toying with the beads of her necklace. She looks up: "Yeah, um … even to the trailer." And she laughs a little, self-consciously. "I just, uh … ."

He should help.

He should make this easier for her.

He draws his own breath and then they speak over each other, _thisclose_ to unison.

"We should wait."

"We should wait."

She laughs a little again and he touches her hand where it rests on her necklace, still fiddling with the beads.

He nods; maybe he already knew the answer.

She needs space.

He needs to choose.

More importantly, she needs to know that he chose. He might not understand fully what that means, not yet anyway, but he understands how important it is to her and that's enough for now.

"I guess we shouldn't tempt fate," he says, keeping his tone light.

"Yeah, one sleepover … ." Her voice trails off.

"In my sister's hotel room." He pauses. "It sounds very strange when you put it like that."

"It was you who put it like that." But she's smiling a little, and he smiles back before he focuses on putting the jeep in reverse and getting them out of there.

Because even in the dim harborside light, he recognized that smile: it's the wide but rigid one she pastes on so she won't tear up.

Not visibly, anyway.

..

He insists on walking her up to the room.

"I'm not going to try anything," he says, both hands lifted in the air.

"Where have I heard that before?"

He looks amused. "I'm not 22 anymore."

"Well, neither am I." She leans against the closed door, her resolve waning a little. "Derek … ."

He takes the key out of her hand – key, not key card, it's the Rustic or Whatever Innafter all – and turns the lock for her.

"Good night, Addison."

" … good night."

She stands in the foyer of her room for a while after that, staring at the closed door, the brass key still warm in her palm and her cheek still warm from his chase good night kiss, wondering why it feels so confusing when he did exactly what she asked.

 _Baby … your mom might be losing it._

He calls later, to say good night to the baby. It's so normal by now she doesn't even pause to wonder anymore what someone might think if they saw the scene: a quite visibly pregnant and rather tired looking _not_ 22-year-old, who's only taken off half her makeup before taking a break to rest, propped against a rustic-or-whatever whittled headboard and holding the telephone receiver against her bump so her unborn baby can have privacy to hear from his father.

It's normal for them, anyway, and isn't that what matters?

..

"You're having coffee with Nancy," she clarifies the next morning, accepting the decaf he's holding out for her. "You."

"Me."

"Whose idea was it?" she asks.

"Who's asking?"

He takes advantage of her silence to leans in and kiss her cheek. "I'll see you later. Oh, Addie – "

She glances up.

"My mother was disappointed not to meet all our … friends … yesterday, so she's stopping by the hospital after she takes the girls to breakfast."

It's a sign of how concerning this prospect is that Addison doesn't even stop to marvel at his mother consenting to pay for breakfast.

(Nancy convinced her it was part of the John's-million-frequent-flier-miles room credit, but still.)

"Our friends?" she repeats weakly.

"Our friends."

..

"You asked me on a date."

"I didn't ask you on a date." Derek frowns at his sister. "I asked you for coffee."

"You asked me on a date," Nancy continues, "which means something's up, which means you should stop asking me how my coffee is and tell me why you asked me on a date."

He shakes his head a little to clear it. "Did that make sense?"

"I always make sense."

"Nancy … ."

"Just spit it out, Derek. –not the coffee," she clarifies, lifting an eyebrow, and it shouldn't be amusing except they both remember Amy's prolonged spitting-milk-on-her-siblings phase.

Fine.

He sighs.

"She wants me to choose her." Derek looks down at his coffee cup for a moment.

Nancy is quiet—actually quiet! – for long moments.

"I know."

Derek glances up.

"I get it. It's the thing. You don't get it, you're a guy, and guys are stupid."

"Nancy." He shakes his head. "Remind me why I asked you for advice?"

"Before or after I remind you that you asked me to fly out here?"

"I did." He sips his coffee. "I appreciate it. That you came here."

"Okay, then." Nancy studies his face for a moment. "The thing, Derek. The _thing_."

"Just saying _the thing_ doesn't mean I know what you're talking about."

Nancy sighs. "Fine. Just – listen, for once," she says, unfairly. "Addie wants you to choose her. Because of course she does. We all do."

"All," he repeats doubtfully. "All of you all want me to choose Addison?

"No. Well, maybe. But that's not what I mean."

"What do you mean, then?"

"I mean … it's not just love. Love is the easy part. We want to … be the center of someone's world. Have them be the center of our world. Someone to sacrifice for us … and with us, too."

He takes it in. "This is what women want, is what you're saying?"

"It's what Addison wants."

"She said – "

"No. Not here, to me, or anything like that. Just … things we've talked about. We used to talk all the time, you know."

"I know." He looks into his coffee cup again. Another reminder of how much they left behind in New York.

"And I get it," Nancy continues quietly, "because we're alike in that way, Addie and I."

He doesn't respond.

"Look, maybe it seems silly to you that I'm saying this when my husband couldn't sacrifice the minimal effort it takes to have the nannies watch all five of the children I pushed out of my . . . anyway." she pauses. "When John was first promoted to MD, I was pregnant with Matthew and Kyle was still a baby and they offered John a spot in Hong Kong. A better offer, a bigger deal."

Nancy pauses to study her left hand where it rests on the handle of her cup.

"I didn't want to go," she says, looking up again. "It was too far from Mom and from Kate and Lizzie and from the kind of practice I wanted and from shoe stores that actually carry my size. John wanted it, though. He wanted to go to Hong Kong. But we didn't go."

Clearly, but he doesn't interject.

"We didn't go," she repeats. "For me. John stayed in the New York office for me. He chose me."

Derek listens. He's listening, and processing what's really none of his business but he's listening just the same. He's hearing that sacrifices come in all sizes and marriages are sometimes different below the surface … and no one really knows what goes in another couple's life.

..

"You had coffee." Addison rests an arm on the nurses' desk as Derek and his sister approach, scanning both their faces to see what she can discern of their conversation.

(She's just curious. That's all.)

"We had coffee," Derek confirms. "And now I have patients." He leans in and kisses her cheek, then nods to Nancy. "I'll see you later."

Nancy waits a moment before she turns to Addison, propping a hand on her hip.

"You had coffee," Addison says approvingly.

"We had coffee. Derek has been . . . impressively tolerant, on this trip." Nancy smirks at her.

"Derek loves you," Addison says automatically.

"Of course he loves me." Nancy adjusts the collar of her blouse, which was already perfect. "He just prefers to love me across the country."

"He called you," Addison reminds her.

"Oh, I know." Nancy lifts an eyebrow. "It's his own fault I'm here. Which I suppose means … it must have been worth it to him."

It's more or less what Savvy said on the phone, and Addison takes it in.

..

"Your mother-in-law is in the hospital."

Addison whirls around, two patients later, to see Miranda Bailey looking up at her with a combination of interest and suspicion.

What was that Derek said? That his mother wanted to meet their … friends?

"You, uh, you noticed?" she asks smiling weakly.

"I noticed." Miranda's eyebrows lift. "And how is it … having your mother-in-law in the hospital?"

"It's fine. It's great." She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear." … it's weird."

"There it is." Miranda looks amused now.

"She wants to meet our _friends_. What good can come of that? Who even are our … ." Her voice trails off. "You don't look surprised."

"I have a mother-in-law." Bailey studies her face for a moment.

Ah.

"So you understand."

"So I understand. And I met your mother-in-law."

It's a pleasing inference, is Miranda their friend? She'd like to think so.

"Now you're talking." Bailey points the chart in her hand in Addison's general direction. Her pager goes off then; she glances at it and then executes an impressively exaggerated eye roll. "Excuse me while I go try to find out why it's always one of my interns … ."

..

This is a work day.

Which is a good thing, because she's good at work.

People respect her at work.

She's a professional at work.

(And if she sometimes semi-loses it at a …. work prom … and tells a hundred people about her pregnancy, that's recoverable.)

But right now the hospital is full of Shepherds. Three generations of Shepherds.

Shepherds who want to meet their _friends._

Which is why, rounding the corner and seeing Nancy pinning Meredith Grey, and Cristina Yang in her intimidating sights … she should just turn around and walk the other way.

Leave them alone.

Let them be.

She has enough to worry about.

Except Meredith glances up and – _damn it._

It's too late.

She's going to be the subject of a brand new pregnancy book. _Psychic Bonds with the Husband's Former Mistress: Are They the Key to a Painless Delivery?_

(Fine, that second part is just wishful thinking.)

But she can't have made up the expression on Grey – Meredith's – face, caught in Nancy's snare.

So she speeds up, heels clacking the floor, one hand protectively over her bump – _sorry baby, Mommy's got to hurry to save some not-that-innocent interns from Aunt Nancy –_ but when she gets there, to her confusion, neither Meredith nor Yang seems to be in imminent need of rescue.

On the contrary, they appears to be deep in conversation with Nancy.

Maybe her psychic mistress-clairvoyance needs some work.

" … which is another reason Burke's mother hates me," Yang is saying as Addison approaches, while the other two nod knowingly.

"Before we got married, John's mother said I was too skinny and not set up for _birthing_." Nancy makes a dismissive gesture, but her expression makes clear what she thinks of that term. "I showed her, though, wouldn't you say, Addie?" she adds, turning to her sister-in-law.

Addison nods. Yang looks suspicious but there's no reason why she would know . . . "She has five children," Addison explains.

And now Yang looks as nauseated as Addison felt during the first trimester.

"There you go, Cristina. Just have five children, and Burke's mother will come around."

"Bite your tongue." Yang turns to Meredith, who laughs, then back to Nancy and Addison. "I'm not having children."

There's a fraction of a second in which Addison, Meredith, and Cristina – because she was _Cristina_ when she was a patient on the table in Addison's OR – share a memory no one will tell Nancy.

Then it's Yang who breaks the silence, glancing at Addison's no longer subtle at _all_ bump. "No offense," she says in the bump's general direction, then glances up at Nancy. "But yeah, five, _really?_ Like, on purpose, really?"

Nancy smirks. "Truly."

Yang shudders again.

"But you weren't an intern … ." Meredith's voice trails off as Addison glances at her sister-in-law.

"I wasn't," Nancy assures her. "I would have been, with my first, but I wasn't. I took a year," she explains. "I did postgraduate research. My internship was waiting for me when I finished."

Yang's face is white. "You postponed your internship?" she asks with horror, in the tone one might expect to hear _you sold your firstborn to pirates?_

"My internship could wait." Nancy shrugs. "My baby couldn't wait. It was my choice," she adds.

The key word: _choice_ , but Addison isn't sure Yang can hear her over the sound of her own disapproval of said choice.

"I wasn't the only OB in my class who got pregnant during residency. You can't always wait for the right time."

Addison swallows. It's not Nancy's fault that that particular aphorism – true though it may be – was tossed around in more than one unpleasant marital spat on the topic.

 _You can't always wait for the right time_ , Derek warned her as their when-will-you-be-ready conversation turned more heated. _That's Nancy's line_ , Addison retorted, and Derek just shrugged. _Maybe Nancy has a point._ Addison was irritated, she recalls this, pushed away the glass of wine that wasn't really helping: _So marry Nancy, then. I'm sure the fishing's great in Appalachia_. She's not sure what happened after that – more arguing, more pushing, one in many loaded back-and-forths that turned a topic that was once exciting into something incendiary.

And not in the good way.

The kind that can burn down a marriage.

Nancy gives her a sidelong glance, maybe remembering.

Of course, an OBGYN residency isn't the same as a surgical residency, which is obvious enough to everyone present that no one brings it up. Addison rests a hand over the spot where her own unexpected pregnancy is developing. There's no question that _the_ _right time_ , by any objective measure, would not normally involve two barely-getting-along adults living in a trailer in the woods, keeping secrets from each other and keeping their distance, too.

But that was then … and this is now.

"But then you started your internship," Yang prompts, apparently still stuck on Nancy's unconventional career path. "Uh, you did actually finish it, right?"

"No, I bought a medical license online." Nancy raises an eyebrow. "Don't tell my chief."

Yang looks like she finds sarcasm far more reassuring than anything to do with choosing babies over internship.

Meanwhile, Meredith is looking at Nancy with an expression Addison can't quite identify. "How did you manage it? Internship and residency and then … did you ever see your kids? I'm just asking," she says hastily, perhaps seeing Addison's face. "My mother was a surgeon," she adds, presumably for Nancy's benefit.

"Surgery is different," Nancy says after a moment, Yang nodding in vigorous support.

"Nancy saw her kids," Addison adds, letting a note of defensiveness creep into her voice. "She's a wonderful mother."

"I'm an adequate mother," Nancy corrects her, spots of color on her cheekbones. "And I had help, of course."

Nancy's husband – he was never the warmest, but he always seemed supportive in his way. He certainly wasn't the most hands-on when it came to childcare, but in all the time Addison knew them, he never begrudged Nancy her professional obligations or accolades. In a world of bankers whose wives stayed at home or dabbled in part-time vanity careers, he never minded Nancy's commitment to medicine. If anything, he seemed proud. And at the beginning, certainly, his far more lucrative career supported their growing family.

"Burke's mother didn't need any help," Yang says darkly.

 _And we're back to that._

"… which is one of the many reasons I'm not good enough for her perfect son."

"Without help? Oh, please." Nancy waves a hand dismissively. "My mother was a single parent for years, working nights, and even she wouldn't say you're supposed to do it without help."

Meredith is looking curiously at Nancy. "I didn't know your parents were divorced."

"Divorced?" Nancy looks confused now, then glances at Addison. "What do you – oh. No, she was widowed."

Meredith's eyes widen. "I'm sorry," she says quickly, glancing at Yang. "I didn't know."

"Yes, well. It was a long time ago." Nancy clears her throat, then her expression changes. "Speaking of the devil … " she says, _very_ quietly.

With good reason: Addison turns to see Carolyn Shepherd making her way toward them with her characteristic walk: part drill sergeant, part mama duck.

 _Great._

..

"Shepherd!"

He turns around to see Richard striding toward him. His face is more no-nonsense boss than warm mentor, so Derek responds accordingly.

"Chief?"

"Shepherd, is your … family … in my hospital again?"

Derek considers the question. "You mean in addition to the ones on your payroll?"

… okay, maybe not his best respectful tone, but he did try.

" _Shepherd_."

"Chief. My mother and sister are still in town. I'm sure they're not bothering—"

"Your mother came to my office."

"Oh," he says faintly. "Was she, uh, was she looking for me, or … ."

"She was looking," Richard says stiffly, "for me."

"Oh." He glances at the chart in his hands. "Actually, Chief, I have a patient, so –"

"She seemed to think," Richard continues as if Derek hasn't spoken, "that I needed a lecture on how to select the next chief."

Derek feels his face flush. His mother has always been supportive of his career, but seeking out the chief to push her son's promotion? That's a bridge too far even for Carolyn Shepherd.

"I'm sorry about that. She's, uh, I'm sure she was just trying to help."

"To help by telling me who should replace me as chief of surgery?"

"I'm sure she didn't mean –"

" _Competition wastes time,_ " he recites, and Derek flushes again as he recognizes some of his mother's favorite lines when she lectures her children. " _Competition just encourages your people to compare themselves to each other, and if you spend your time comparing yourself to others …_ "

" … _then you'll never be happy,_ " Derek fills in. "Yeah. She's, uh, she's – "

" _And I assume you do want happy people to work for you?"_ The chief pauses. " _Happy people,_ Shepherd! Happy surgeons! Do I look like I want happy surgeons to work for me?"

"You do not look like you want happy surgeons to work for you. Sir," Derek says quickly when he realizes an answer is actually expected.

"Thank you." Richard clears his throat. "And then to go so far as try to tell me who the best candidate it. Me! The _current_ chief. Telling me who the best candidate is!"

Derek smiles weakly. "I'm sorry, chief. My mother … she supports her son."

"Her son?" Richard's brows lift. "Shepherd, are you under the impression that _you_ are your mother's first choice for chief?"

..

"Mom!" Nancy smiles broadly and Addison does the same, praying that _meet your friends_ won't extend so far as to make things worse with the two interns.

Her mother-in-law seems to have other business, though, intent on catching them up.

"Well. I had a very interesting conversation with your chief of surgery." Carolyn gives Addison a meaningful look. "And I think he may have seen the light about his little … competition."

Addison's heart sinks. "You, uh, you talked to Richard about the chief's race?" she asks faintly.

"Someone had to." Carolyn pats Addison's arm. "He doesn't have his own mother anymore to advise him, so I did my best. Now," she says briskly, turning to the two interns, "aren't you going to introduce me to your friends?"

Nancy and Addison exchange a look.

"They're actually …."

"We're not … " Yang starts.

An awkward silence falls.

"She's getting married," Meredith blurts, pointing to Yang, who glares at her.

"Are you? How wonderful! Congratulations, dear!" Carolyn smiles at her. "When is the wedding?"

"Um." Yang looks pained.

"Soon," Meredith offers vaguely, "but actually, we don't –"

"Weddings are wonderful," Carolyn says brightly, "but the marriage is far more important, of course. A wedding takes a moment, but a marriage lasts a lifetime. Marriage isn't always easy, but few things that are truly worth it in life are easy."

"Who died and made her a fortune cookie?" Yang mutters to Meredith, just loud enough for Addison to hear but not the others, and she frowns in response.

"Thank you," Meredith says volubly, turning toward Carolyn. "That's, uh, that's very good advice. I know Cristina appreciates it."

Yang, for her part, seems to be trying to smile, but it comes out looking more like bared teeth.

"Well. I'm glad to hear it." Carolyn looks at Yang. "Then I hope you'll forgive me for speaking plainly –"

Addison braces herself. In her experience, this usually heralds something awkward.

" – but I hope you'll remember how important it is to start a family sooner rather than later."

 _Awkward._

Addison rests a hand on her own geriatric pregnancy and wonders how hard it would be to fake an emergency page.

Yang, for her part, is staring suspiciously at Derek's mother.

"Did Burke's mother pay you to say that?" she demands.

Carolyn frowns. "Who's Burke?"

"Her fiancé," Nancy offers, glancing at Yang. "He's very handsome," she adds, which understandably doesn't seem to satisfy her mother.

"His name sounds familiar … ." Carolyn purses her lips.

Addison crosses the fingers of one hand behind her back.

"I'm not sure where I've heard it before … ."

And then, for good measure, she shoves her blackberry into the pocket of her white coat so she can cross the fingers of her other hand too.

"That's it!" Carolyn snaps her fingers. "He's the other doctor competing for chief," she says triumphantly, looking to her daughter-in-law for confirmation.

Weakly, Addison nods.

Carolyn is silent for a long moment; Addison can just see the wheels turning in her head.

But all she says is: "How exciting. suppose you have a busy year ahead, then." Carolyn pauses, looking at Yang.

 _Don't say it, don't say it, don't say it._

"I'm just saying, dear … you won't always be this fertile."

 _She said it._

"I hope not," Yang says, so deadpan that Carolyn actually seems unsure what to say next. Meanwhile, Addison toes the floor with one pump and prays it might be willing to swallow her up – not a lot, just enough to get her out of this conversation and maybe down to the cafeteria, since she wouldn't mind sharing one of those baseball-sized blueberry muffins with her carb-hound of a baby right about now.

But hey, the thing about a conversation _this_ awkward?

At least it's rock bottom.

At least it can't get any more awkward.

… and then Carolyn turns to Meredith.

"What about you, dear? Are you seeing anyone special?"

Yang coughs meaningfully.

Nancy clears her throat.

Addison closes her eyes.

"Ooh, Mom, look at the time." Nancy gives her wristwatch a perfunctory glance. " – we really should get going." She takes her mother's arm. "Addie?"

"Coming."

 _Sorry_ , she mouths over her shoulder as she follows her sister- and mother-in-law down the hall, thinking that at the very least she might no longer be the Shepherd who made the most awkward Seattle entrance.

..

"Tell the truth. You'll be glad to see us go."

Nancy's dark eyes are sparkling mischievously.

"You know how much I've missed you." Addison leans forward, giving her sister-in-law an impulsive hug. "And the girls. All the kids."

"And Mom?" Nancy raises an eyebrow.

"Mom too."

"Except maybe she didn't need to log quite so much hospital time."

"Exactly." Addison tucks her long hair behind her ears. "But I'm going to miss you," she says quietly. "All of you."

"Well." Nancy pats her neat rolling suitcase. "It's not such a long flight."

They smile at each other, and then Nancy pauses.

"She didn't know about Dad."

Addison nods; no need to define _she._

"And I don't even mean the store –" the tactful Shepherd euphemism for what happened that terrible day – "I mean that he died at all."

"I know."

Addison saw the expression on Meredith's face – confusion, neatly covered, and a little embarrassment when she realized her incorrect assumption of divorce. Not that it's Meredith's fault – of course it's not.

She never really gave it thought before, is the thing.

It's just that when she arrived in Seattle, Addison was so much more focused, when making a play for her own husband's affection, on how little Derek knew Meredith … that she never really pondered just how little Meredith knew Derek.

The thing is _time._ The decades and decades of a life that can't be siphoned out in a fling.

Derek and Meredith dated, charitably speaking, for a period of months. Three months. Addison has spent more than fifteen years with Derek: from intimate one on one time where they learned each other better than she's ever known anyone, to crowded, clamoring family time that knit her up irretrievably into the larger Shepherd clan. Three months into Addison's relationship with Derek, they still hadn't taken final exams their first year of medical school. There were four three-month periods in each year they'd known each other. She doesn't do the math – doesn't need to – she's just struck by the sheer comparison.

She didn't learn about Derek's father right away. By the time he brought her home with him that first Thanksgiving, she was aware that Derek's mother was a widow, that Derek lost his father at thirteen, and she didn't pry beyond that. A month or so later, when a nightmare woke first Addison and then Derek in the chilly dawn hours … he gripped her hand tightly under flannel sheets and admitted the truth behind it.

That was just the beginning. A secret rarely has one telling—certainly her own life has shown that. As Amy's addiction began to spiral out of control, Derek admitted his fears that he didn't protect her sufficiently from the trauma that attended their father's death. Years later, after losing his first patient, she held him closely on a narrow call room bed while he whispered to her, in tears, the fear that he could have done better not just in the OR but that long ago day in his father's store. Could have somehow been faster, smarter, _better_ , and fixed it. She cried too—she always cried, if he did, she couldn't help it—and told him he was wrong. _You're not perfect, no one is perfect, you did everything you could._

How many times has she repeated those words over the years?

He was _hers_ , from the perfectionist medical student to the perfectionist intern to the perfectionist resident to the perfectionist attending to the perfectionist department head. Always hard on himself, always somewhere between a guilt complex and a god complex, and always hers.

It takes years to know someone that well.

It takes tears and fights and sweat and determination and aggravation and fears and not quitting, anything but quitting.

She fell in love fast, too. She gets it. Three months in, Addison already loved him too.

But she didn't know him. She couldn't.

Now … she knows him.

To Nancy she just shrugs a little. "Well, he hasn't been in town that long," she offers vaguely, and her sister-in-law accepts it.

..

Alone in the lobby with a cup of herbal tea and the few crumbs of blueberry muffin her son allowed her to leave over, she ponders this … knowing.

And what it means to know things about someone that no one else does. The thing is, there's a spectrum, from the most mundane to the potentially humiliating to the dark and the deep. There's seventeen years and the vast assortment of _things_ she's acquired.

A lifelong listmaker, she lists a few.

 **One.** _The motorcycle thing_. That is, the real reason he doesn't ride motorcycles anymore _._ He likes to say it's the scar and sound all – rakish and daring or whatever, and the truth is she doesn't care as long as he never rides another motorcycle. Which is why when she stormed into the exam room to yell at him for the accident that caused the scar, and he told her defiantly that he wasn't going to stop riding for a little scratch, she wasn't having it. She took a deep breath and told him if he ever rode another motorcycle, he was never going to see her naked again. She was just angry enough to keep her promise, too, and he must have believed her because he never called her bluff.

 **Two.** _The hockey thing._ Rakish? Not so much. He carried the weight of the world on his shoulders sometimes. He told her, second year of medical school, about what happened on the hockey rink years before. About the brain injuries that inspired him toward a career in neurosurgery and the restitution he hoped to pay one day. As soon as student debt started translating into salary, he set up a fund. He didn't have to … but he did.

 **Three.** _The other scar thing …_ The chicken pox scar, small but easily located when you spend as much time learning each other's naked bodies as they did. On the back of his ribcage, left side, the result of finally giving up on oatmeal baths that intensely itchy kindergarten summer and just scratching the hell out of it with a wire hanger. Secretly, she thinks it's cute. Maybe their son will be resourceful like that. Determined. (She'll hide the hangers just in case.)

 **Four.** _The underwear thing._ This one she knows he's never shared and she's not sure which of them it makes look worse but it's a memory that still makes her laugh and cringe in equal measure. It involves far too much vodka after far too little sleep and some ill-advised rounds of strip poker … followed by a dare (hers) for him to try on a pair of her underwear. It was red and lacy and he started to do it when she panicked and realized she'd never get over it if they actually fit him. So she snatched them back so quickly he fell over and _that_ scar is somewhere no one else will see it.

 **Five.** _The uncle thing._ The niece and nephew thing. The kid thing. His uncle persona is public but she's not sure anyone else knows it as well, because who else watched it so closely? Addison is a baby person, always has been, but even the cutest blue-eyed Shepherd eight-pounder is no match for how soft Derek's face looks cradling a newborn. So yeah, he was distracting, and yeah, she noticed things. Derek rocks left, probably so his right hand can cradle a small skull against his shoulder. His go-to rhythm is _shh shhhh_ , not the more popular _shh shh shh_. In _Old MacDonald_ , he always starts with frogs, ever since it made Katie laugh a hundred years ago. Frogs, then dogs, then back to the basic boring ones like horses and cows. But first frogs.

 **Six.** _The shark thing._ He snuck into _Jaws_ in the theater with Mark when they were kids (of course it was with Mark). And was so freaked out he slept under Lizzie's bed that night. And a couple nights after that. He got over that (which is good, because there wasn't room enough under there for both of them). The _shark thing_ didn't vanish, though. He stuck rigidly to the water alerts every summer they spent together, refusing to go in the ocean when the sightings were too close to their beach and refusing to let her go in either, no matter how many times she tried to present her normally logical husband with statistical risk evidence.

 **Seven.** _The ferry thing._ Seattle has a ferry system and she's surely not the only person who knows he has a thing for ferries. The only person who knows what he _did_ on the ferry, back in New York? God, she hopes so, because she's pretty sure it's illegal in like … four different ways.

 **Eight**. _The doubt thing._ Surgeons doubt themselves sometimes. Even great surgeons. They do it behind closed doors and maybe most of them do it alone but they did it together. They held onto each other and reminded each other that they were never, ever going to quit. Surgery was scary and failing was scarier and they were just kids the first time someone put a scalpel in their hands. They had doubts. Everyone has doubts. But they hid it because you have to and they told the world they were a hundred and one percent sure. Alone, together, they sometimes whispered those questions: _what if? What then?_ But they were only for the two of them, and no one else.

Sixteen—almost seventeen—years of knowledge.

She could no more quit him than she could medicine, and if she did, would all those years of study and practice just disappear? They'd have to go somewhere.

 _He called Nancy._

He called Nancy, but he didn't tell her he did. He didn't want credit. He must have wanted something else, something that mattered more to him than the tension headache at the bridge of his nose Nancy was infamous for causing.

 _I need you to choose me_ , she told him.

The thing is, she knows him.

After all these years, she knows him.

She should have known that when he chose her … it wouldn't be with an announcement.

..

Three hours.

His sister's flight takes off in three hours.

Surely they can make it three more hours without any unpleasant surprises or finding out that his mother dropped into OR 3 to advise Burke on a complex CABG.

What he needs is focus.

What he needs is an intern, actually, to offload the charts he's holding. He can hear a gaggle of them behind a mostly-closed exam room door.

 _Don't you have work to do?_

Oh god, he's getting old if that was his first thought.

He's not surprised that that interns are snatching rare downtime moments to catch up—certainly he and Addison and Mark were guilty of that, many times, so he's wiling to let it slide until he hears his own name.

Then he stops, fist half-raised toward the door, to listen.

"So you both met Derek's mom," he hears someone says—Stevens, he's fairly sure.

"We both met Derek's mom," says another voice. That one was Yang.

"Well? What's she like?" – Stevens again.

There's a moment of quiet.

" … we both met Derek's mom," Meredith says then, and he hears quiet laughter.

"Sounds like you dodged a McBullet there," Stevens says as Derek finally, pointedly, raps on the not-quite-closed door.

"Dr. Shepherd!" Stevens is blushing visibly. "We were just, um . . . . " She gives Meredith a desperate look.

"Well, don't let me keep you, then," Derek says pleasantly. "I was looking for an intern, but I think O'Malley might be free."

..

Two hours. Their flight leaves in two hours.

He thinks about what his sister said this morning, about his wife: _she wants someone to sacrifice for her and with her._

And Addison, last night, in the car: _I'd like to go with you. Yeah, um, even to the trailer._

He's kept his hands to himself and his kisses chaste—for the most part.

He's kept his word.

But Addison wants to be chosen?

Addison wants to be the center of someone's world?

What has he been doing, waiting for her to notice?

She's nearly twenty weeks pregnant. Almost at the halfway point.

And he doesn't want to waste another day.

If she hasn't seen it, if she hasn't realized it, then he's just going to tell her.

And if that's not enough, well, then he'll figure something else out.

He's not waiting any longer.

..

She's pacing the linoleum floor, half an eye out the sliding glass doors for the familiar faces of the extended Shepherd family.

 _He called her anyway. And he pretended he didn't._

"Addison."

She looks up, her cheeks coloring. It wouldn't be the first time she thought he could read her mind.

And then she draws a deep breath. _Here we go._

"Derek. I, uh, I want to talk to you – it's nothing bad," she adds quickly.

Derek tilts his head, his eyes very soft. "Yeah … I want to talk to you too."

"Okay, then." She takes another deep breath, feeling almost shy. Glancing down at her watch, she realizes the time and sure enough – she recognizes Nancy's familiar walk heading up the path. "We should, um, we should probably meet Nancy and the others first. Say goodbye."

"Right." He nods.

"Right," she repeats. "Yeah. It can wait."

Derek nods again. "Well . . . I'm not going anywhere."

In spite of herself, a curl of warmth threads right through the middle of her. She swallows hard, looking at her husband. "And neither am I," she says.

..

Divide and conquer, Shepherd style. While his wife exchanges prolonged hugs with their nieces and promises to send them postcards _with_ the Space Needle, to Nancy's smirking amusement, Derek follows his mother to a quiet bench just past the cafeteria.

"We have a little time," Carolyn announces, clearing her throat a bit. "I left a little time. I wanted to talk to you, son."

He nods, not sure where this is going.

"I wanted to tell you … that I'm proud of you."

Derek studies the view over his mother's shoulder, across the sound. He's a little embarrassed. He feels … undeserving.

"You didn't run from your problems," she continues.

"What about Seattle?"

"You ran here. And I did think you were running from your problems," his mother admits. "At first I did. But I was wrong. You did run here, but then . . . so did Addie. Even Mark ran here."

"Don't remind me."

His mother pats his arm. "Take your time, son. There's no rush. But I think Mark will still be there when you decide to forgive him."

"Who says I'm going to forgive him?"

"Just a feeling from an old woman."

"You're not old," he says automatically.

"I'm old," his mother corrects him. "And who says that's a bad thing, growing older? You always wanted to grow up."

 _Up_ , not old, but he doesn't make the distinction. Not out loud, anyway.

"You can't have one without the other," his mother announces, as if she's read his mind again like she used to when they were small and she had to figure out which one of them left the ice cream half-melting on the counter or forgot to take out the trash.

"It's not easy, what you're doing." She studies him for a moment. "Fighting for something important. Your family . . . your wife and your child . . . there's nothing more important." She pauses. "Your father would be proud of you too."

He feels heat building behind his eyes and can't quite bring himself to look at his mother's face. There's a particular way she's always looked when she talked about his father and he's not sure he can handle it right now. Not when his own fatherhood has been hanging in the balance these last months.

"Derek," his mother says gently, and he forces himself to look at her.

"Your father was a fighter." She fishes a handkerchief out of her handbag, dabbing at her eyes. "And so are you."

He swallows hard, letting his mother embrace him.

She draws back. "Well, then – oh, one more thing, before I go." She reaches into her pocket. "I want to give you something."

"I thought only Addie got the presents on this trip," he teases her, happy to lighten the mood.

"My children always keep score." Carolyn shakes her head ruefully, and then Derek sees she's holding a small velvet box.

He takes it from her when he realizes it's what she wants, and looks inside.

"It's a ring," he says, confused.

"It's a ring. Well. It's not just a ring," she corrects herself. "It's . . . your father always wanted you to have it," she continues quietly. "I was saving it for when you met the right girl."

..

" … but that's just for _vet_ Judy," Claire is explaining, ticking accessories off on her little fingers. "And Lilly has the puppies, but _not_ the gerbils. Maddy has the guinea pigs, though." Claire pauses. "Gerbils are not the same as guinea pigs," she says gravely.

"See, Addie, all the fun facts you miss being on the other coast?" Nancy grins at her. "Claire, honey, finish up so we can get –"

"I'm not done with my snack!" Claire cries, outraged. Lilly throws a hand over her own snack in case it's also in jeopardy.

"My mistake. Can you forgive me?" Nancy rolls her eyes. "Addie … you sure you want one of these?"

Addison looks at her nieces' sweet faces—scowling as they guard their snacks with their lives, but still … sweet.

"I'm sure," she says.

..

His mother's words are echoing.

 _Your father wanted you to have it. I was saving it for when you met the right girl._

Derek tilts his head, confused. "I don't understand."

"I was saving it," his mother repeats, sounding defensive.

"Saving it for what?" Derek turns the ring over in his hand.

"Your father wanted me to – "

"I heard you the first time," he interrupts, not bothered when she lifts an eyebrow at his tone. "I've been married for eleven years," he reminds her.

"I know that."

"Almost twelve."

"I know, dear. I was at the wedding."

"But this ring wasn't at the wedding." He stares at it.

He knows his wife and his mother are cut from different cloth, but he's never thought, as Addison sometimes laments, that his mother doesn't _like_ her.

And yet –

"I was saving it," Carolyn says now, looking resolute. "And I know you've been married eleven years, honey, of course I know that, but this is different. Things are different now. This is your first child."

Derek's eyes widen. "So it's not the right girl until you have a baby?"

His mother looks unconcerned with this interpretation. "It's a lovely ring, you know."

"I already proposed with a lovely ring."

She's still wearing it, too. She showed up back in Seattle wearing and she never stopped wearing his rings. Not after Christmas when he admitted his feelings for Meredith or after Mark showed up the first time or after Mark showed up the second time, not when she packed her things over his wan objection and moved out of the trailer, not when she told him with what he knew took immense strength of will that she couldn't let them drift back together again until he actively chose her.

The rings were a constant. She already chose him.

And the absurdity of a ring showing up nearly thirteen years after he proposed to his wife . . . a ring waiting for him to find the _right girl_?

"I don't mean anything against Addie," his mother says quietly. "I love Addie, you know that, I just – "

She doesn't finish the sentence.

He just stands there, trying to make sense of all of it. He wants to say _thanks anyway_ , to hand it back for the insult that his mother thinks she needs to tell him Addison is right for him.

(And he realizes he's been anything but certain in the past, that his mother knows some of the ugliness between them – though not all of it – but she also knew them when they were young and in love and had the world in front of them, and still . . . no ring.)

Swallowing hard, he offers the ring back to her. "Thank you," he says. "But I already bought a ring, when I met the right girl. I don't need another one."

His mother's expression is hard to read. "Son. Don't be hasty – "

"I'm not."

She sighs. "I should have . . . described it differently."

Describing something differently doesn't change anything.

But his mother's shoulders are faintly stooped, her voice husky with emotion and guilt washes over him. His elderly, widowed mother – as much of a pistol though she may be – offering him something from his father, and watching him turn it down?

His pride is keeping him from reaching out for it again, even as a small part of him he's ignoring whispers what should have been obvious: _Addison wouldn't want you to give the ring back. She'd want you to have something of your father's. She'd want you to have it more than she'd be insulted by what your mother said. More than she'd want you avenging her feelings._

There's a tickling ache in his throat when he realizes the truth of it. Of course she would accept it. And yet . . . his job should be to defend her anyway. He swallows.

"Mom – "

"Forget what I said." His mother's eyes are bright with tears. "It's an old – but forget it. Forget the reason. I'd still like you to have the ring, Derek. To have something of Dad's."

Derek doesn't say anything.

"You don't have the watch anymore," his mother reminds him gently.

He looks down. His mother gave the watch to him; he, in turn, gave it to Amy when she was recovering, to give her strength.

There was history behind that watch, painful history, but Amy never questioned the gift of it.

Wordlessly, he holds out his hand, and his mother puts the ring in his palm. It feels warm, as if someone has been wearing it, and he stares at the metal shape of it.

"Your son won't get to meet his grandfather," Carolyn says quietly. "But he will meet the right girl, one day … and you can give him this ring then."

He looks up. His mother's face is slightly blurred.

"I think your father would like that."

..

Finally, it's time.

The hours have ticked down to minutes and final goodbyes are taking place in the pleasantly balmy air outside the hospital.

"Christmas," Carolyn prompts, "I know you couldn't make it last year, but I want everyone home for Christmas next time."

Derek and Addison exchange a glance. "Mom . . . the baby's due the second week of December. I don't think Christmas in New York is in the cards this year."

"Which means Thanksgiving is out, too," Carolyn sighs.

"Maybe we can visit earlier in the fall," Addison blurts, not really sure why – something about her mother in law's sad expression and the fact that she's missed east coast foliage more than is strictly sensible for someone who spent much of her time indoors.

Derek raises an eyebrow at her. _What,_ she mouths, and he just smiles.

"That's a wonderful idea, dear." Carolyn beams at her. "You know, I spoke to – girls, Grandma is trying to talk to Aunt Addie," she interrupts herself as Lilly and Claire clamor at her side, talking over each other about the upcoming airplane ride.

"Sorry," Lilly says, sounding medium-sincere, Nancy in miniature.

Claire, undeterred, tugs on her grandmother's hand. "Will you sit next to me, Grandma? And can I eat your snacks?"

Addison exchanges an amused glance with Derek. To her credit, their niece did pause for breath between the two requests, though it didn't make them seem any less linked.

"We'll see, sweetheart." Carolyn seems to be failing at sternness as she readjusts Claire's dark curls, then looks fondly at Lilly, whose arms are folded and whose small Nancy-esque face is set in a scowl. "Maybe we'll all take turns," she says, and Lillian brightens at this better offer.

Nancy bustles up then, apologizing for the delay and hustling everyone toward the waiting black car.

"John's miles," she mutters quickly, presumably for Derek and Addison's benefit, before they can say anything in front of Carolyn.

And then there are hugs and kisses – "come back soon, okay?" Claire whispers over Derek's shoulder as he holds her off the ground, loudly enough for Addison to hear and to have to blink back tears.

"Addie . . . it was good to see you," Carolyn says when she stoops a little to embrace her mother-in-law and Addison is a little embarrassed to find herself emotional again.

It's not her fault. It's the necklace, and the picture, and the little girls beaming up at them, and the way her mother-in-law is already casting the same fond glances at the bump concealing her latest grandson that Addison has watched her give all the others, in- and ex-utero. The fear that her son would be ostracized or less than in the Shepherd family wasn't one she'd articulated fully to herself, much less to Derek. Nor had she prepared herself for Carolyn's surprise visit.

Yet somehow, after the surprise and the stress and the scattering of secrets in the hotel and the not-quite-perfect news at the fetal echo and the decidedly awkward insistence that her mother-in-law meet their _friends_ … the visit was positive.

And Addison feels more positive than she has in a long time.

Not just positive.

Something else, something warmer.

Something that's not unrelated to the all too brief conversation with Derek. The one they're going to pick up once the family leaves for the airport. Once they have nothing to distract them.

 _Well . . . I'm not going anywhere._

 _And neither am I._

A smile that she can't quite control spreads across her face.

And then Carolyn is bustling the girls toward the car while Nancy hangs back for a moment, readjusting her oversized purse on one narrow shoulder.

"Everything is going to be okay," she tells Addison quietly, leaning in to kiss her cheek.

"With the baby?" Addison glances at her.

"That too." Nancy squeezes her arm lightly. "I missed you, Addie."

"I missed you too."

She'll miss her again, she knows she will, it's just –

There it is again, that feeling.

 _Positive_.

She feels . . . good.

Nancy is saying something to Derek now that Addison can't quite make out; she tunes back.

". . . and don't forget, Mom wants everyone to come over in September."

"She does?" her husband looks like this is news to him. "What happened to Christms?"

"She's turning 70 in September, Derek," Nancy reminds him bossily. "And how did she put it . . . now she has one more reason to celebrate."

Addison is touched all over again, resting a hand on her bump; without discussing it, the warmth of Derek's palm fits over it too. He gets it.

She opens her mouth to tell Nancy they can't possibly agree to fly across the country.

"Well, sure . . . we can do that," she finds herself saying instead. "Right, Derek?"

"Uh . . . yeah. If that's, uh, we'll talk about it." Derek glances at her.

"Just let me know, and I'll send you a link to my favorite compression stockings for the flight." Nancy makes a face. "Really, though, I hope you'll come. You know Mom isn't much of a party thrower."

"So this is Kate's idea, then."

Nancy nods. "But Mom isn't going to pass up a chance to have all the kids and grandkids and everyone in one place. She's inviting the world. All the in-laws. Everyone." Nancy sighs, then glances at Addison. "Including your parents, Addie."

"My parents?" Addison laughs a little. "That's, uh, that's sweet of her. I hope she won't mind when Bizzy sends their … polite regrets."

Derek nods.

"Actually, Mom told me Bizzy liked the idea," Nancy says.

Addison blinks, confused. "When did she ask her, at the wedding?"

"No, she said she spoke to her about the party just a couple of weeks ago. When Mom called Bizzy to congratulate her on becoming a grandmother."

* * *

 _Who was it who said we were all waiting for the other (expensive, very high-heeled) shoe to drop? #sorrynotsorry for the cliffhanger I've been waiting for. I hope you'll review and let me know what you think of the **whole** chapter rather than just throwing rainbow trout at me for the cliff. (Or at least, like, one non-cliff point.) Things are happening! Things are progressing! And as for that bomb Nancy dropped on the way out of town ... well, tune in next QPQ Sunday to see where that goes. Thank you as always for reading, I appreciate every one of you. See you next week! _


	32. Congratulations

**A/N:** It's still QPQ Sunday in Seattle. And for **LoveAndLearn**. So I'll say it: **happy QPQ Sunday!** I'm sorry I couldn't update midweek. I appreciate all the supportive reviews, wince at the less supportive ones (read twice, post once, it's a thing). I love this story, and I'd love to write it 24/7 so I could update on the daily. I'll leave it to you to take that up with my bosses both at work and at home. Meanwhile, here's a slightly more human sized chapter to move us along.

The good news? The next chapter is almost finished. I'm shooting for a midweek update, but I need to finish another much delayed update first. Wish me luck. Thank you, as always, for reading, and I hope you enjoy this chapter!

* * *

 ** _Congratulations_**

Gestational Age: Nineteen weeks, six days  
In Other Words: one day from halfway  
Average Gestational Age at Natural First Time Delivery: forty one weeks, one day 

Number of Women Who Deliver at Forty Weeks on the Nose: very few  
Number of Statistics that are More Like Rumors: a lot more than that  
Meanwhile, Baby is still the Size of a: mango (which seems cruel considering how well mango goes both undercooked fish)  
Number of Shepherds in Seattle Today: back to the usual two full sized, one Sheplet  
Speaking of Full Sized, Number of New Bras Baby's Mother Has Been Forced to Purchase: none of your business  
But Since You Asked, They Look: pretty damned good if baby's mother says so herself  
Number of People in Seattle Enjoying the Reasons for Aforementioned New Bras: in person, a hard zero, despite the second trimester cliché  
Baby's Mother Overall is: thisclose to losing it over a rogue Montgomery  
But Everything is: fine, fine, totally fine

..

Look—first of all, this is fine.

It's fine.

Totally fine.

So Bizzy knows she's pregnant.

Because Bizzy, who never wanted to be called mother, received a phone call from Carolyn Shepherd congratulating her on being a _grandmother._

What's not fine about that?

Addison laughs a little, hoping it doesn't sound as manic as she feels. She kept it together while they said their final goodbyes to Nancy and the rest of the family, even as her heartbeat was pounding in her ears, and then she turned to Derek and gripped both his arms—half to steady herself and half in the hopes that it would wake her up from a bad dream.

"It's fine," she tells her husband, who looks less than convinced.

"Addie—"

"No, really. It's fine." She pushes her mouth into a smile. "It's fine."

"I'm sorry. Mom will feel awful," he says. "She must have assumed Bizzy already knew."

When she called to congratulate her.

 _Congratulate her_ , that's what Nancy said.

"Bizzy, uh, she probably played it cool." Addison swipes a lock of hair away from her face. She feels anything but cool right now; then again, Bizzy is nothing if not a cool customer. "You know, waiting for the right time to strike."

… like the snake she can be.

"But it's fine," she adds quickly.

"It's fine," Derek agrees, and his tone is reassuring, at least.

"It's fine," she repeats.

Gradually, she loosens her grip on her husband's lab coat. He's looking at her face with a mixture of curiosity and concern, a recognizable expression from someone who's met Bizzy.

More than once.

"Let's just—put it out of our minds," she says heartily.

Derek nods gamely, though he doesn't look quite convinced.

It's okay. She can convince him that this doesn't bother her.

Because it doesn't.

It's _fine_.

..

"Why wouldn't she have called?"

"I don't know," Derek says tiredly.

"It's just strange. That she didn't call, I mean. She hasn't said anything."

"Addison."

"You would think she'd call."

"Addie."

"Or at least that she'd make Archer call. Or sent him, or—"

She shudders, presumably at the thought of her brother seeing her new life in Seattle. Archer Montgomery, in a trailer? She walks even faster down the hall in her very high and typically loud heels, as he quickens his pace to keep up with the insistent _clack clack._

Addison, meanwhile, doesn't miss a beat of her stream of consciousness.

" … and even if so, she could have asked Archer to do _something._ Or she did call and I missed it. Did I miss it?" She stops short so fast he nearly crashes into her rigid back and flips open her phone, scanning it fiercely in a way that brings back uncomfortable memories from past years. His mother-in-law, by technical definition only, always seems to leave Addison frantic in some way.

Whether it's trying to avoid her mother's disapproval, or trying to figure out her mother's motives—

"Why?" Addison asks again. "Why wouldn't she have called? Unless she's too … angry to call."

 _So here, it's a little of both._

"Addison, can you just—"

He steers her, with some effort, to an area of the hallway with less foot traffic.

She doesn't. protest, but doesn't calm down, either, just picking up where she left off.

"The thing is, that shouldn't stop her from having Archer call. Unless she doesn't want him to call because she's waiting for _me_ to call, but that would mean she knew your mother told me. Or told Nancy and Nancy told me, but then even if she didn't know that she might think I'd call anyway, even though I haven't, and I wasn't exactly planning—"

"Addison."

She breaks off mid-sentence. "Now what?"

"You're rambling."

She frowns. "I don't _ramble_ , Derek."

"Okay." He nods; it feels important to agree with her right now. "You're not rambling. You, uh, you might be ranting, though."

"Ranting?" she asks, eyes wide. And then her pager goes off and she glances at it, sighing. "My patient. I need to go." She pauses. "Derek –"

"I know. Rant to be continued."

She turns halfway and then turns on her heel back to him a second later, her lab coat doing double duty to billow in the right direction.

Her tone is apologetic: "But we were … "

And then her voice trails off, but he gets it.

They were going to try to have a conversation, weren't they? After his family left?

"Later," he promises her, seeing here conflicted expression, and she nods.

"Don't go anywhere," she instructs, not very practically, as she stalks off without missing a stride, not at all visibly slowed down by her changing shape.

Where would he go?

It's not like he has a job to do or anything like that.

..

"She's known for weeks," Addison says without preamble when she catches up to him by the fourth floor reception. "Weeks, Derek."

"I know."

"Not days. Weeks."

He doesn't respond.

"Which means she's had weeks to just … stew about it. To let it marinate." She pauses. "Are those the same thing?"

"Depends on what you're cooking," Derek responds, used to this type of question.

Addison nods, accepting his answer.

"Well, she's doing on of those things, or both. I can tell you what she's _not_ doing."

"Letting it go," he guesses.

"Letting it go," she repeats. "Bizzy doesn't let things go. You know that. She never forgave Florence Beekman for calling at six o'clock, and that was when –" She breaks off. "What?"

"Am I supposed to know what's wrong with calling at six o'clock?"

Addison blinks. "One calls at _five_ o'clock," she says in a decent impression of her mother.

"What if _one_ is working at five o'clock?"

"Well, there's the problem." She points her pen in his direction. "One doesn't _work._ "

" … I have two who don't seem to work," a new voice cuts in. "What should _one_ do for that?"

"Chief!" Addison takes a moment to smooth her hair while Derek clears his throat. "That's, um, well, I'm not sure that's so much an etiquette question as—"

"Addison."

"Yes?"

Richard's brow furrows, somewhere between stern and sinus headache (okay, fine, _maybe_ tension headache).

"I wasn't looking for an answer."

"Oh." She glances at Derek, who ever so slightly moves one finger, enough for her to read it clearly as the _cut it off_ gesture its intended to be. "Actually, Chief, we have patients, so we should probably go …"

"There's what I was looking for." His face looks marginally more approving now, but he still waits as they walk away.

In the same direction, but in fairness, they're both heading to different patients, so it should still count.

..

Derek pushes the elevator button in silence while Addison, also silent, somehow manages to convey displeasure.

"Addison."

"Just say it, Derek."

"Say what?"

She raises her eyebrows. "I was rambling," she prompts him.

"Oh, that." He shrugs a little. "Yes, but that's not what I was going to say."

"What were you going to say, then?"

The elevator dings and he rests a chivalrous hand on the open door as she enters ahead of him. Thankfully, they have the elevator to themselves.

"I was going to say … that you're going to get us fired," Derek says.

" _I'm_ going to get us fired?" Her eyes widen. "How is this my fault? … and before you answer that, remember that it was your mother who had the bright idea to call my mother."

"Hey." He frowns. "She was calling to congratulate her. Even Emily Post can't have a problem with that –and no, I don't know if it was six o'clock, or five o'clock, or midnight, but I know she wasn't trying to cause problems."

"Not _call_ like the phone, Derek, _call_ like –" She stops talking at his expression. "Fine. I know your mother wasn't purposely trying to make me insane."

"Is that really the best you can do?" he asks as the elevator door opens.

"No, I can do better."

… which is the moment they're joined on their previously private elevator by Mark Sloan.

 _Great timing._

"Derek. Addison." He gives them a collegial nod of greeting that's nothing but professional.

In other words, totally out of character.

Both Shepherds exchange a glance.

"What?" Mark spreads his hands. "Look, we all have to work together. We're professionals. Our personal … issues can't interfere with our work."

He leans in to press his floor, somehow not even leering as he does so.

Derek is trying to figure out a semi-professional way to ask if Mark has had a head injury when the elevator doors close.

"So." Mark turns to them both, his expression much more familiar. "How are the lovebirds doing today?"

Addison props a hand on her hip. "What happened to _we're professionals_?"

"We're surgeons." Mark grins. "The professional _is_ personal. … especially for some of us." He looks none-too-subtly at Addison, whose current posture has pulled her blouse more snugly across her bump.

She doesn't miss this, her cheeks flushing. "Here's an idea, Mark. Why don't you take your personal and your professional and go back to New York with them?"

Hurt flashes briefly across his features. He glances at Derek.

"You know, before she left, Mom said she was glad we were _mending fences._ "

Derek grits his teeth.

For some reason, he can't bring himself to say _don't call her mom_.

"We're not mending fences," he says instead. "Not while you're still in Seattle."

"Good fences make good neighbors," Mark recites, apparently a font of Carolyn Shepherd wisdom today.

"And good neighbors keep their hands to themselves." Derek stares at the numbers at the top of the doors, willing the elevator to move faster. He doesn't say: _when it comes to their neighbors' wives._

He doesn't have to.

No one speaks for a moment.

"I like Seattle," Mark announces, although no one asked. "It's nice. The weather's a little damp, the girls are a little outdoorsy, but still … it's nice."

"Mark –"

"Why don't you go back to New York?" he suggests.

Derek's eyes widen at the sheer gall of the question, but Addison responds before he can.

"We like Seattle," she says.

Derek has to press his lips together to keep from his automatic response at her unexpected words: _We do? We, as in both of us?_

"And we were here first," Addison continues.

"Finders keepers?" Mark smirks, then gestures toward the middle of Addison's body. "You really want to raise your spawn in Seattle?"

Derek moves a step closer to his wife instinctually; Mark doesn't seem to miss this either.

How is the elevator still moving?

"Our _spawn_ was conceived here," Addison points out, wording that makes the air in the elevator change a bit.

The elevator mercifully dings – _finally –_ before Mark can say anything else, the elevator doors open, and he throws them one last smirk before he holds the door for Callie Torres.

"Dr. Torres," he says politely as she joins the Shepherds on the elevator, though his gaze at the back of her is anything but polite.

 _Two-faced._ That's Mark. Derek's stomach tightens. He turns to Addison, but sees she's distracted.

Torres has one hand raised in the air, and if he squints he can see that she's—

"Married!" She's beaming at Addison. "We got married. George and I went to Vegas."

"George … O'Malley?" Derek asks, confused, as both women frown at him before returning to their conversation.

"Congratulations!" Addison hugs the other woman, laughing a little when Torres's embrace is cautious. "I'm not _that_ huge," she says.

"You're the opposite of huge. I just don't want to squash the baby."

 _Squash the baby._ Derek makes a mental note to tell the chief the residents need more OB exposure, as the doors open and all three of them exit.

"You're not going to squash him," Addison assures Torres, pausing a few yards from the elevator to continue the conversation.

 _As long as the chief doesn't see us._

"Him!" Torres's eyes widen, as she glances from Addison to Derek. "Wait. It's a him?"

"Um …" Addison looks at Derek, her expression conflicted. He smiles encouragingly. Maybe it's the contrast with Mark, but he finds he doesn't mind sharing the specifics with Torres.

"Yeah. It's a him."

Torres hugs Addison this time. "Congratulations!" She glances at Derek. "To both of you, I guess."

"You guess?" Derek asks, offended.

"Fine, congratulations to both of you." Torres is back to discussing her nuptials with his wife. "It's Vegas, so it was very … Vegas. And he's an intern. An _intern_. I basically married the help."

Derek finds himself wincing at the terminology, but Addison seems amused. He's not exactly thrilled to be listening to what's clearly girl talk about a wedding between two people whose private lives are none of his business, but he and Addison need to talk.

No, they _want_ to talk, and finding a time won't be easy. So if he can just hold on long enough to—

But they're talking about the ring again.

"It's tiny, I know. It's not much of a ring."

"It's beautiful," Addison says firmly.

Derek is well aware that his wife has tact in spades, which is how she manages to sound perfectly sincere and admiring while holding Torres's hand in hers—even as the Vegas ring is practically microscopic and Addison's ring is, as it wont to do, sending prisms of light across the elevator.

(He has good taste in jewelry, okay?)

That's when he realizes both women are looking at him expectantly. "It's a … very nice ring," he says.

"You can trust him." Addison is smiling. "Derek has very good taste in jewelry."

Torres looks like she's considering a less than flattering comeback, but Derek's pager goes off before she can get it out.

"I, uh, I need to go. Congratulations, Torres," he says briefly, and then turns to Addison. "See you later," he tells her, and it's both a question and a promise as he leans in to kiss her cheek. Except that Addison is turning her head at the same time, which means his lips brush her mouth instead.

And the page means he has only a second to take in her flushed cheeks as he turns around to head for the third floor.

..

"Addison. Earth to Addison."

"… Yes?" She's staring at the space where her husband was standing, one finger rising unconsciously to brush her bottom lip. He was aiming for her cheek. She's almost certain of it, and she was a little distracted, turning her head, but then—

"So, I'm new to this whole marriage thing—like 18 hours new—but is it normal to get all … fourth grader on the playground with her first crush when you've been married like ten years?"

"Eleven years," Addison corrects automatically.

As for the rest of the question, well.

It's hard to be too defensive when she's busily trying to dissect what happened. It was inadvertent. Wasn't it? Obviously, both Shepherds are well versed in the vectors of two fast-walking people exchanging brief cheek kisses in a hospital hallway. This time they were both standing still, which should make aiming easier, shouldn't it? Then again, she turned her head. Which she often does, but was it different this time? She was just offering him her cheek to kiss, wasn't she, like she's done countless times, and even a handful of times or more since their most recent separation? She wasn't somehow trying to … trick him into giving her a more substantial kiss, right?

"Addison?"

She looks up. "Sorry. What did you say?"

"Wow. You are really far gone."

"I'm sorry." She is sorry, she's being rude, here newlywed Callie has exciting news to share and Addison is making it all about an indepth analysis of a half-second kiss with her husband of nearly twelve years.

Which is rude.

"Wow," Callie says again. "Is Shepherd really _that_ good?"

Addison laughs a little in spite of herself. _Yes,_ that's the answer, but not one she's going to share. It's totally off the subject, for one thing.

"I'm just, uh, I was just trying to figure out what that meant," she admits.

Callie looks confused.

"You know, whether we're … ." Her voice trails off. "We've, uh, we've been separated," she admits. "Derek and I."

"Separated. You?" Callie glances between Addison's face and the blank spot on the floor where Derek was standing until minutes ago. "Seriously?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Well, you have a hell of a way of showing it." Callie flicks a strand of long hair over the shoulder of her scrub top. "I hope George and I are that _separated_ in eleven years."

"I hope you are too," she says without thinking, and for a moment they both smile at each other before Addison remembers the layers behind her own smiles. "But, uh, I hope it's less complicated for the two of you."

"Eh." Callie waves a dismissive hand. "Most good things are complicated, aren't they?"

"You tell me." Addison glances at the time. She has a minute, at least. "You're the newlywed. How is it so far?"

"It's good."

"Good." Addison pauses. "Does this mean the, uh, that you've healed?"

"Healed?" Callie asks, looking confused. "Oh!" her face brightens. "You mean the broken vagina? Yeah. It's back in working order."

"Glad to hear it."

"My vagina isn't the problem. My … Stevens is the problem."

"Stevens. Izzie Stevens?" Addison continues at Callie's nod. "What about her?"

"She hates me." Callie frowns, examining her left hand. "She made fun of the ring, which—sorry, being rude about a ring is way tackier than any ring could ever be."

 _Co-signed._ Addison just nods in agreement. Now isn't the time to follow up, but she gets the sense Callie might have learned some similar lessons to Addison's growing up. Hopefully more gently … but still.

"Why do you think she's—"

"She's George's _best friend_." Callie pronounces the final two words with audible irritation. "Which I guess means she's in charge of his life and should have signed off on his marriage or whatever."

There's a moment of silence where Addison hopes very much that Callie won't ask about whether she has ever had any issues with Derek's best friend.

 _Not since about five minutes ago, it's all good._

"She didn't know you were getting married?" Addison. Sks.

"No, but hey – neither did I until we were _thisclose_ to the airport, so … ." Callie shrugs, examining the ring again. "She didn't even congratulate us."

"Sounds like she feels threatened." Addison pauses, realizing she's not fully up on intern gossip—which, to be clear, is fine with her. "Were Stevens and O'Malley—"

"Ooh, no." Callie makes a face. "They're just platonic best friends, roommate kind of friends, apparently share a bed during a thunderstorm kind of friends, and yeah, I'm so done with high school and I don't want to be glared at in the freakin' cafeteria by an _intern._ "

She says all this in one breath, very fast, then pauses.

"I mean, I know I married an intern, but that's different."

"That's different," Addison agrees. "Look, Callie … If Stevens is threatened, or jealous, or whatever she is, that's her problem. You're a newlywed. Don't let her spoil it."

Callie looks up at her. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." Addison tilts her head. "If she's rude enough not to congratulate you, well, I'll just have to do it again to make up for her."

Callie's brow lifts. "Is that how it works?"

"Oh, yeah. Trust me, I've been married a long time." Addison takes a step back to survey the other woman. The newlywed. "Hey."

She waits for the other woman to look up.

"Congratulations, Callie. I'm so happy for you."

The smile Addison gets in return is so bright it's hard to imagine anyone not wanting to make Callie Torres happy.

..

"I just don't understand why she hasn't said anything."

"Neither do I," Derek says patiently, "but Addie, we don't have much time to—"

"I know." Guilt flickers across her face. "I'm sorry, I know you hate Bizzy."

He flinches. This never leads anywhere good. "I don't hate Bizzy," he says carefully.

(Not true, not really, but not the time. Not now.)

"I just think we're going in circles, Addison. She hasn't said anything—"

"But _why_ hasn't she said anything?"

"I don't know," he says, a little less patient now, and Addison frowns.

"You don't have to yell at me," she responds, sounding hurt, and even though _yell_ is a spectacularly unfair characterization, he's the one who feels guilty now.

"I'm not yelling at you. I was just hoping we could talk," he says pointedly, keeping his voice at aa decibel so low they'd fit in well in a library, just to be safe. "That's why we met for coffee," he reminds her gently.

"I know." She looks torn. "I want to talk to you too, I just—I can't concentrate right now." She turns an anxious face to his. "Is that okay?"

"It's okay," he says; there's no other answer when she's this wound up, even if she weren't pregnant with his child.

In spite of himself, he's impressed that Bizzy can still whip her into a frenzy from three thousand miles away without saying a single word.

"I'm sorry," Addison says in a small voice.

He has to force down the response he'd like to snap back—not at her, but at her mother, at this unfortunate dynamic he foolishly thought they could control by _not_ telling Addison's family about her pregnancy.

He deferred to her, of course, and if she'd wanted to he's fairly certain he would have just deferred to her. Even if he didn't think it would make anything easier.

The thing is, he's been married to Addison for eleven years, dated her for five before that, and he's never, not once, known Bizzy to make any situation easier.

"It's okay," he says again, more decisively this time, and she gives him a wan smile.

"Thanks for the coffee." She gestures at her paper cup of decaf. "I'm sorry I'm a lousy date."

"You're not a lousy date," he says automatically, and then gestures at the warm, humid air around them. Seattle is no Manhattan and it's not exactly uncomfortable, but suffice it to say the open-air cafeteria more pleasant before high summer. "And I wouldn't say this is a date, exactly. Not a real one."

"Yeah." Her face turns pensive as she looks over his shoulder at something he can't see.

"Addison."

She glances at him.

What can he say?

 _Your mother is poisonous and you should cut her off completely like one of Medusa's heads._

From experience—that's not a good idea.

He could say what he came here to say— _I choose you, I chose you all along but I finally get it now, I'm choosing you and the ball's in your court now—_ but he can't.

Not like this.

Not with Addison half tuned out, looking distractedly toward the water and fiddling with her necklace the way she does when she's nervous. The new outline of her figure is obvious in profile and while it swells him with pride to see the visible way she's carrying their baby, it also makes him less patient for anything having to do with Bizzy and her particular brand of _family._

He's always felt protective, around the Montgomeries. He hasn't had much of a choice.

This is just the first time he's realizing he has two people to protect from them now.

"Addie …"

"Why didn't she deputize Archer?" Addison asks abruptly.

"What?"

"We didn't talk about that. yet," she insists, apparently anticipating his objection. "We talked about why Bizzy didn't call. We didn't talk about why she didn't just … delegate. You know she likes to have Archie do her dirty work. Make her calls and … things."

There's a moment neither of them mentions the call Archer made to Derek more than twelve years ago now, two months into their engagement.

"So," Addison continues, "it stands to reason she'd get Archer on the job now."

But nothing Bizzy does is reasonable, is it?

"I don't understand _why_ she didn't—" Addison pauses, turning to Derek, her eyes narrowing like she's seized upon an idea. "Unless … she did."

"Unless she did what? Sent Archer?" Derek is confused. "Are you suggesting he's here, just … lying in wait?"

"I guess not." Addison is fiddling with her necklace again. "Not that I'd put it past him." She smiles a little, fondly, and he forces down his own opinion of her brother. It's not important, not now.

"Addison. Why don't we just—"

"She can't be thrilled," Addison says, which Derek recognizes as a Montgomery way of saying _she must be really pissed off._

He doesn't say: _she'll get over it._

"Bizzy doesn't just get over things," Addison continues, as if she's read his mind. "Her chauffer ratted me out for staying out all night after the prom and she held it over my head for years. She's probably still holding it over my head. Although now she has something even better to hold over my head. In fact, she might even connect the two. Girls who give _unfortunate impressions_ are the same ones who—"

She breaks off, looking distressed.

"What is it?" He touches her face.

"This baby is a _good_ thing," she says, sounding surprisingly fierce. "He's good news. I don't care what Bizzy thinks."

He's relieved, even thrilled, to hear her say that last part, but in his experience, indifference to Bizzy's strong opinions is much harder to maintain in her presence.

And Bizzy never needed to actually _be_ there to make that presence felt. Which is convenient.

"Derek." She looks at him, her expression still troubled, and he forgets for a moment that there's still distance between them.

There's only ever been one way to handle it when Bizzy does this to her—works her up, leaves her insecure about thing she normally knows for certain, whips her up into a frenzy for foolish reasons. For no reason at all. For sport, it feels sometimes.

He's relieved to see that after everything, the _one way_ still works.

She moves willingly into his arms, not seeming at all surprised by the gesture. Maybe she, too, is feeling an odd sense of suspended animation, of déjà vu. The last time Bizzy did this to her, they lived in New York.

It was before Mark. Before Meredith.

Before everything.

She rests her chin on his shoulder—taking full advantage of the extra height her ridiculous heels bestow—he wraps his arms more closely around her and they stand like that for long moments without speaking as he feels her breathing regulate along with his.

She steps back, looking a little embarrassed.

"Thanks," she says.

"You don't have to thank me." He moves a stray strand of hair away from her face. It's wavier than usual, a victim of the Seattle dampness, but he's always liked it that way.

"Okay." She smooths down the rest of her hair, and he watches the waves disappear.

"Addie."

She looks up, making him realize he's not sure what to say.

"… prom was a long time ago," he says finally. "That one, I mean. The first one."

She watches him without saying anything.

"Your recent prom, on the other hand … ." His voice trails off.

"… was much better." Her mouth curves up in a smile. "Thanks to you."

And then they're both quiet, maybe pondering _much better_ , since her recent prom did include an inadvertent disclosure of her pregnancy to most of the hospital, a decent-sized marital spat, and Derek searching one closed room after another looking for her.

… but then it also included a rather spectacular session of making up in one of those very rooms.

Addison is smiling at him, maybe remembering that contrast just as he is.

"Actually, Derek, about Bizzy … ."

He braces himself.

"Let's forget about her. For now, at least." She smiles at him again, looking almost shy. "I'd rather talk about … I mean , I'd rather talk to you," she says, stumbling a little over the words and her cadence along with that shy smile take him right back to medical school. "Do you—do you still have time to talk?" she asks, a little uncertainly.

"I still have time to talk." He looks around; no hospital cafeteria is ever empty but they do have some facsimile of privacy. "You want to sit down?"

"I do."

He pulls out a rather damp wrought iron chair with some ceremony, which makes her smile again.

But before she can sit down, her pager goes off.

"It's the twins," she says regretfully. "I have to go, I'm sorry."

He understands, of course he understands. But he's still a little disappointed watching her go.

Then again—they have the rest of the day.

How hard can it be to have one admittedly important conversation with his wife when they share both a workplace and a desire to have said conversation?

… as it turns out, pretty hard.

..

"I'm sorry," Addison says again when she's only halfway into his office, her open white coat swirling. "This _was_ a good time for me, but I need to cover a patient for Candice."

"It's okay. I understand."

..

"I'm sorry," Derek says, when he has to leave the exam room she's pulled him into after less than a minute.

"It's okay," she repeats mechanically. "I understand."

She does.

She's a surgeon _and_ a surgeon's wife and she's both spoken and heard those words many times.

"Five minutes," he says. "This won't take long."

… fifteen minutes later, she's staring grumpily at her reflection in the mirror, smoothing down her flyaway hair. Seattle _really_ hates her hair.

The woman in the mirror stares back just as grumpily—so she's not a vampire, first good news all day.

At least both women are wearing an excellent blouse, invisible internal ruching the only maternity giveaway; she has to admit it's hugging her torso like it was made just for her. It's complicated, dressing her body as it changes, especially when here non-maternity wardrobe is so rigidly unforgiving. Addison has steadfastly refused to let her weight fluctuate more than four pounds in either direction for the last ten years, not out of vanity but rather because she couldn't bring herself to sacrifice any of her carefully curated wardrobe.

"Dr. Shepherd!"

She turns around. It's Stevens, looking a little breathless. "The other Dr. Shepherd was looking for you," she says. "He's up on five."

Addison is out the door like a (pregnant) shot, but she can't even be that surprised when she finds out from one of the nurses at the central fifth floor desk that she's just missed him.

Somehow, her life has become one of those romantic comedies where they keep missing each other in ways that might even seem too contrived on screen—but considering her last few movie life _things_ have been Greek tragedy and French farce, she'll take rom-com without too much complaint.

..

… this is not a complaint. Really. But it really shouldn't be this hard to find a few minutes with her husband in their shared workplace, should it?

She hasn't had this much trouble tracking him down since the days he was blatantly avoiding her, and even then she managed to catch him for a painful encounter or two at least once a day.

"Derek!" she calls when she catches sight of his familiar shoulders, heading down the hallway.

He turns around immediately. "I was looking for you."

"I was looking for you too." She can't help smiling. "This is—"

"—harder than I thought it would be, too." He cocks his head, studying her with soft eyes. "Or was it always this hard?"

"I don't think it was."

Which means the fates are conspiring against her having this conversation, which is—unfair.

For a fleeting moment she can't help wondering if this, too, is Bizzy's fault.

"Derek—"

"Dr. Shepherd!"

They both turn around."

Alex Karev is jogging up, his gaze focused on Derek, though he spares a quick once-over for whatever he can make out between the open lapels of her lab coat, which she pulls closed in response.

"It's Arthur Flick," Karev says, grimacing. "Sorry," he adds, jerking his chin toward Addison as if to say _I realize you were in a conversation with your wife when I so rudely interrupted._

Or, knowing Karev, it's more like _hey, nice t—_

"I'm sorry," Derek says, pointing a finger in her direction, adding _we'll talk later_ as he disappears along with the intern before she can even respond.

..

Later. Right.

They'll talk later.

The fact that this is no _not now, Addison_ , the fact that he actually seems to mean they really will talk later, somehow doesn't soften the fact that they can't seem to have their actual talk.

Which means she's left to spin her wheels on multiple counts, anxious to finally talk to Derek about the shape of their future, about what she's realized and what she knows he's done.

… and, still, spinning her wheels about the bomb Nancy dropped before she left.

She considers this as she scrubs in, precise, forcing herself to calm down with the precise rhythms of the cleaning ritual.

There's no reason to obsess. She's not going to ramble, or rant.

She shoulders her way into the bright cold air inside the OR, as familiar to her as the feel of the gloves on her hands, as activity swirls around her.

"Ten blade," her resident requests—a second year, and she glances quickly to Addison for approval. She nods, ceding control.

 _See one, do one, teach one._

Life in the hospital has rhythms.

Perfectly familiar.

Perfectly precise.

Perfectly logical.

Just as there must be a perfectly logical explanation as to why Bizzy has apparently known about her pregnancy for weeks and hasn't made a peep, or whatever the WASP version of a peep is.

Or, at the very least, a perfectly _Bizzy_ explanation.

With minimal guilt, as she oversees a procedure she could perform in her sleep, she considers the options.

 **One** _. Denial_. The denial is strong in Bizzy. Addison once witnessed her mother walk in on her father and her tennis instructor in flagranté delicto (WASP translation: "otherwise occupied") in the Captain's study and then moments later calmly inform one of the maids that the Captain would be a few minutes late for dinner that evening to "take care of some paperwork." Addison was fourteen, and when she gathered up the courage to ask her mother whether she would be getting a new tennis instructor, Bizzy answered in the negative without a shred of emotion. Then there was the time Archie was home for Christmas and angry about getting caught smoking again and told his parents he was dropping out of Deerfield. While Addison stared wide-eyed, Bizzy just smiled pleasantly and, once Archer had stormed out, turned casually to her daughter and reminded her that she would grow round-shouldered if she didn't stand up straight. So, yeah. Denial is definitely an option.

 **Two.** _Drunk._ Fine, Bizzy, is the functional kind of alcoholic, but drunk is drunk. It's possible Carolyn called two or five cocktails in and they were just strong enough to block out the proof that the icy-pure Bradford Forbes bloodline was getting an infusion of Shepherd (much needed in Addison's opinion, presumably horrifying in her mother's).

 **Three.** _Deaf._ Not actually deaf, but … gets glazed eyes when Carolyn Shepherd starts talking kind of deaf. Bizzy has a long history of politely tuning out Carolyn's longer stories, whether about her grandchildren (who should be seen and not heard), her latest frugality tips (one doesn't discuss money), her cooking (Bizzy doesn't cook), or their shared children (Bizzy doesn't parent). Maybe she just missed it?

 **Four.** _Strategy._ This one concerns her. Bizzy could be planning something. And not a gala. Beatrice Forbes Montgomery is nothing if not a strategist. Addison would know – she'd like to think her motives are far purer, but still the apple probably didn't fall that far from the WASPy tree there.

 **Five.** _Sentimentality._ Bizzy could be so overwhelmed with emotion that her only daughter is pregnant that she hasn't quite gathered up the nerve to call and—yeah, she can't even think this one with a straight face. Bizzy, sentimental?

 **Six.** _Susan._ It's possible Carolyn never even spoke to her mother. Bizzy's secretary has been intercepting unwelcome callers for years, and while she'd never impersonate her boss without express permission, Addison would be less than shocked to find out Susan has blanket permission to do whatever it takes to keep Carolyn Shepherd and her decidedly un-WASPy version of Americana far away from the Montgomeries.

 **Seven.** _Indifference._ In other words: Bizzy took the call, she drank no more than her usual amount, she heard the announcement … and she just didn't care. After all these years, it's not like that should surprise her. Really, it shouldn't even hurt.

So why does it?

"Dr. Shepherd."

"Yes."

"May I close?"

"Yes. Go ahead."

She watches her resident's careful work with tempered admiration, wondering why she can feel this proud of a student she's known just a few months when Bizzy doesn't seem to care what her own children do.

..

"Chief—have you seen Addison? She's not answering her phone."

"She's working," Richard says slowly, "at least I hope she is."

"I, uh, I was just looking for her," Derek says, already feeling a little chastened.

"Yes, I gathered that." Richard studies him for a moment. "I could have her paged. Or why don't I just pass her a note for you in the cafeteria?"

His tone is sufficiently sarcastic to drive the point home.

Derek swallows. "That won't be necessary, sir."

Richard nods, then fixes Derek with another stern look. "Shepherd. I understand your mother has left Seattle."

"Yes. She left."

"So. Just to be clear … all the distractions with your family are over now."

Derek pauses. He's fairly certain neither his mother-in-law nor anyone else would describe Bizzy as his family (just as he's certain the extended Shepherd family _would_ describe Addison as theirs), so he's not really lying if he says –

"Yes, of course, Chief."

Richard gives him a stern look. "Good."

All things considered … that remains to be seen.

* * *

 _Stay tuned for the next episode, which I think you're going to like. I hope you liked this one, too. You can't be in the Addek Revolution if you don't appreciate a slow burn. Those two have been on simmer since 2005 (or 1989, depending on how you see it). As I've said before, things are going to pick up speed once we pass the midpoint, but there are some key humps to get over first. Here's a little quid pro quo for you: review and let me know what you thought, and I'll get the next chapter up by Sunday at the **latest** ... hopefully sooner. Have a great week, everyone!_


	33. Still Fits

**A/N:** Happy QPQ Sunday! It's actually Sunday, even all the way across the country from Seattle. Thank you to everyone who read and commented on the last chapter. I truly appreciate it; getting back on a weekly schedule is much, much easier with motivation, so thank you for motivating me. I hope you enjoy the chapter.

* * *

 _ **Still Fits**_

Gestational Age: Nineteen weeks, six days  
Baby is the Size of a: mango-sized loaf of bread? (Mama needs her carbs)  
Number of Montgomerys in Seattle: 1 total, counting half a Sheplet and half a Montgomery-Shepherd  
Number of Montgomerys Not in Seattle but Somehow Haunting Seattle Anyway: 1 total  
Baby's Mother is: totally fine with her own mother's mysterious silence  
Baby's Maternal Grandmother is: not exactly the fresh baked cookies type  
But at Least Baby's Maternal Grandmother is: 3,500 miles away  
And Just to Be Clear, Everything is: fine

..

 _All the distractions with your family are over now._

It must have sounded so simple to Richard when he said it. It's just … not that simple. It goes beyond the way his mother-in-law is managing to drive his wife fairly effectively around the bend without saying a single word. The Montgomerys, in his experience, aren't simple.

But he's also not particularly surprised at his mother-in-law's silence, either.

He doesn't know what it means, not exactly, or what she's planning, if anything, or if she gave the news more than a half a second of thought.

Here's what he knows: when your wife is a list maker, a not rambler but a sometimes ranter, you sometimes make your own lists.

Maybe it's that Bizzy doesn't surprise him, not anymore. His whole experience with his mother-in-law has been one rather unpleasant surprise after another.

 **One.** _She's always Bizzy_. Motherhood is too confining to be defining, as Bizzy apparently used to say. Derek, on the other hand, was raised by Carolyn Shepherd, who mourned the day her youngest child was too grown up to call her _Mommy_ , proudly kept, displayed or wore—whichever was relevant—any trinket, apron, or sweatshirt labeled _world's best mom_ or _best grandma ever_. His mother was _Mom_ , through and through, to all her children—some of whom she bore, and some she didn't – and now all her children in law. The idea of refusing to be called _mother_ was as foreign to him as the unsettling quiet in the house where Addison grew up.

 **Two.** _She's not a fan of Addison_. The Addison Derek met, when he was 22, was a little self-deprecating, a little self-conscious, but still he just assumed her own mother would feel about her the way everyone else seemed to. She was magnetic, warm and sweet and funny. His own mother warmed up to her quickly, didn't even start tutting until she figured out how Addison had grown up. The first time he met Bizzy, and saw the way she treated her daughter, somewhere between indifference and disapproval? Yeah. That was a surprise … and not a nice one, either.

 **Three.** _She's not a fan of children, period_. The one _sort of_ positive thing you could say about Bizzy is that she never pressured Addison about pregnancy. Then again, that was the presumable result of her not having enjoyed her own pregnancies very much, and possibly also her realizing she might then have to _see_ said baby, and even let it loose on her floors … around her antiques … and all of that.

 **Four.** _She's unimpressed by medicine_. Derek grew up in a medical family. His mother was a nurse, his aunt was a nurse, his uncle was a doctor, both his grandmothers were nurses. His family easily grasped medical achievements: his sisters', and then his, and Addison's, as well. Bizzy, though, seemed to treat medical school as the equivalent of a master's in … drama. Only eight people in the world can do what Addison does; to the extent Bizzy knows that, she's distinctly unimpressed.

 **Five.** _She calls her husband "the Captain."_ That's it. That's the surprise.

 **Six.** _She's surprisingly busy – not just Bizzy – for someone who doesn't actually work_. He wouldn't phrase it that way to Addison, who might take it personally, but no, Derek – who had a single mother for his teenaged years, and two hardworking parents before that, doesn't consider maintaining a busy social calendar and hosting … charity events or whatever to be a job.

 **Seven.** _She doesn't say what she means_. Bizzy speaks some – other language than Derek understands, one where his mother-in-law can say: _you look well_ or _the weather has been warmer than expected,_ which sound like small talk to Derek but sends Addison into paroxysms of worry about how she's upset her mother. What is it Addison calls it? _Speaking WASP._ Needless to say, he's less than fluent.

 **Eight.** _She somehow manages to get everyone around her to do things_. Fine, this is a little bit Addison-like, but his wife commands a room with qualities he's never seen in Bizzy: warmth, experience, skill … especially if it's an operating room.

He hasn't spent that much time with his in-laws, though overall it's more than he'd prefer to spend. He supported Addison's choice not to tell her mother-in-law, and he supports her choice not to call Bizzy now and find out what she's playing at. He's had years of seeing Bizzy work Addison into a tizzy, sometimes in person but often just as well without even making one of her grand appearances.

Addison's family takes up far more mental space than physical space and that's fine with him: as far as he's concerned, Seattle already has exactly the right number of Montgomerys.

One.

No more, no less.

And if he could just track down that one Montgomery (Shepherd) and have a conversation with her, an uninterrupted, more than five second conversation?

That would be great.

..

The next time they bump into each other … they bump into each other.

(Like … actually, physically bump into each other. All that's missing, at this point, is a kicky soundtrack.)

Round opposite sides of the same corner, flustered, Addison dropping her chart on the ground. They both apologize, Derek steadying her on her feet—unnecessarily, but she appreciates it—before picking up the chart for her. She's _thisclose_ to trying to help him, even knowing they'll just end up bumping heads before the credits roll—but decides to wait for him to stand up anyway.

"Sorry," he says, handing her the chart.

Maybe it's less romantic comedy now and more just comedy.

"Me too, sorry." She studies his face for a moment. She considers telling him that she knows just from his posture how it went with his last patient. "Are you, um, are you almost done for the day?" she asks instead.

He nods. "I need about another hour."

"Me too," she says again, feeling suddenly shy for some reason. Is this what happens? They try to talk to each other all day, and when they finally get a minute together, they can't quite do it?

She's half-expecting some _non_ -deus ex machina to interrupt them. Will the nurse with the curly hair go into labor right here on the linoleum floor? Will a ferryboat crash through the doors of the hospital?

"Addison."

"Yeah," she says, still half picturing the chaotic scene, then remembering what they're here for. "Do you want to talk?" she asks, or tries to, but Derek has started talking at the same time and she can't make out what he said.

"You first," he says; she shakes her head but then tries again at his silence, except so does he, and it's again lost to a tower of Shepherd babel.

"Can you just—"

"Will you please—"

They both stop talking.

"Come over tonight," Derek says abruptly, and then his expression turns defensive. "I had something better planned," he adds with a frown, "but you didn't let me talk."

"I didn't let you talk? You didn't let _me_ talk!"

"I let you talk. You were the one—"

"The one who what?"

He looks like he's considering his words carefully. "The one who hasn't responded to my question," he says mildly after a moment.

"That was a question?"

"Addison."

She draws a deep breath. Banter her way out of a potentially sticky emotional conversation? They're beyond that, right?

"You said _come over tonight_ , Derek. That's more of a statement than a question."

…. Maybe not so right.

But Derek actually looks amused, and she reminds herself that he chose her, once.

He knew her, all of her, from the way her mother made her crazy to her to the way she was trained to sidestep uncomfortable conversations … and he chose her anyway.

And even though most of her experience in Seattle has been a reminder not to get her hopes up, she lets herself do it this time, just for a moment.

Lets herself feel hopeful, just a little, at the thought that he's choosing her again.

"…yes," she says, looking at him almost shyly, even though he didn't ask a question. "Yes, I'd like to come over tonight."

His smile reminds her of the boy who asked her out in medical school. "Doc will be happy to see you."

"Just Doc?"

"Not just Doc."

A handful of petals swirl in front of her eyes, drifting down to the ground with ceremonial finality.

 _He hates me not._

 _He hates me not._

 _He hates me not, not, not._

..

"I forgot how small the trailer is," she announces when he's closed the door behind them, once she's fussed over Doc and the dog has licked her with sufficient enthusiasm to tired himself out.

"I forgot how much you like to complain."

She makes a face at him, settling onto the couch for all the world like she never left. But then Addison has always entered any room that way, for as long s he's known her.

"I'm probably bigger than the last time I was here," she says primly.

"Three days ago?"

"Blame your son."

"He's your son too."

And then they just look at each other for a moment.

He almost asks her if she wants a drink, and then realizes from the way she's looking at him that she's followed his whole thought process.

You can't get away with much after this many years.

"Have a drink," she says, stroking Doc's ears; he's asleep again with his head on her lap.

"I don't need a drink."

"I might need a drink," she says, "but I'm not going to have a drink because I don't think our son needs a drink, so please, Derek … have a drink."

He's not going to argue with that.

He pours a shot; she smiles when he raises it in her direction. A hundred toasts over the years flicker through his memories. He blinks and she's a pink cheeked bride holding a glass of champagne. _I'm officially Dr. Shepherd now,_ she's reminding him, beaming. _Here's to you, Dr. Shepherd,_ he's responding, raising his own glass in salute, before they link arms to sip from each other's champagne. _And to you, Dr. Shepherd,_ she says when they separate, laughing little, raising her glass in return.

He can stand in the middle of a trailer in the woods of Seattle and recall exactly how it felt at the Plaza on that long ago night. That's the hardest and the easiest part of all of it, he's thought more than once: that he remembers it so well.

That he remembers everything.

"Derek?"

She sounds confused, maybe a little concerned.

"Yeah." He blinks back to reality. "Sorry."

His pink cheeked bride of nearly twelve years ago is seated on his couch with his dog asleep against her. She's leaning back against the cushions, her free hand cupping the bump where their child is growing.

She's here, in his trailer.

No more secrets.

No more hiding.

No more tests, no more near-misses, no more waiting.

"Don't move," he instructs her.

"Where am I going to go?" she can't seem to help asking, gesturing toward the general size of the trailer.

"Fine, just – close your eyes."

"Close my eyes," she repeats. "Wait, really?"

"Would you just do it?"

"Fine." She makes a show of closing them, or rather … pretending to.

" _Actually_ close them, Addie."

She sighs impatiently but this time at least she closes her eyes.

In his experience, she's incapable of keeping them closed very long—Addison hates to miss things, hates to miss out—so he moves quickly and purposefully while he has the chance.

"Okay, open them," he says once he's standing in front of her again.

She does, looking up at him, and he sees her face change when she realizes what he's holding.

"You kept it," she says softly.

"I kept it."

She reaches her free hand up as if she needs to touch it to make sure.

"It's the same one," he assures her.

"I know." She makes a sound that's half-laugh, half-sob. "Sorry," she says. "I'm pregnant. I mean, you know I'm pregnant, I'm a little – I'm sorry."

"I'm not." He waits for her to look at him again, the ring he hasn't worn since the night he left her warming his palm.

It's the same ring.

And they're the same people … except they're not.

He's not twenty-six years old anymore.

He's not down on one knee.

He's not asking a question.

He's not twenty-seven years old, either, standing in front of a minister, waiting for permission.

"Derek." Her voice cracks a little. "You don't have to."

He studies her face; so much the same as the one he looked t when she first slipped the ring onto his finger.

But different.

It's different now.

"I know I don't have to," he says simply. "I want to."

Her eyes are shining with tears. "Derek," she whispers.

Doc chooses that moment to let out a noisy snore, lightening the moment a bit.

Addison laughs, dabbing her eyes.

"I guess he isn't impressed," Derek says.

"I am."

Her expression is very serious, and he swallows hard.

He sees her hand moving toward the ring, but he lifts it out of her reach. At her wary expression, he draws a deep breath.

"I, uh, I decided to put the ring back on."

She looks a little relieved, at least, but her unspoken question lingers in the air. Of course she remembers, just as he does, the day she placed that ring on his finger.

She put it on.

He took it off.

And this time –

"This time, I'm putting it on myself," he tells her.

She's quiet, taking it in.

She's quiet, watching him.

He doesn't break eye contact as, carefully, he slides the ring back onto the fourth finger of his left hand. She draws an audible breath when he does and he knows they're both thinking the same thing.

 _It still fits._

He studies his left hand for a moment.

He recalls Torres in the elevator earlier that day, staring at her left hand with wonder to see a new ring where they used to be none. He is doing the same thing … but it's completely different.

And from Addison's expression, she gets it.

This is the tradeoff for eleven years of marriage.

He doesn't say it out loud.

She doesn't ask.

But they both know.

For along moment, neither of them speaks.

"… thank you," she says finally, quietly.

She doesn't say _for choosing me._

She just holds out her hand, and this time he fits it into his.

For the first time since he left New York, he feels the connection of their wedding rings against each other.

Then she tugs a little on their joined hands and shifts enough to make room for him so he can sit down beside her. Doc diplomatically sleeps through it; Derek reminds himself to reward the dog later.

When Addison looks up at him her eyes are shining again.

"Good, uh, good choice," she says, looking down at his ring and then back up again, smiling weakly when he lifts an eyebrow at her.

"That?" He looks down at their joined hands. "That isn't a choice. _That_ is a ring."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." He gestures to her, and then to the general area where their baby is growing. " _That_ is a choice."

"Him, you mean," she supplies, looking down at her bump.

"You," he says. "You … and him." He pauses. "Is that okay?"

"Yeah." Her smile reaches her eyes. "That's okay."

And then the air in the trailer shifts, noticeably enough to raise the hair on his arms. She moves closer with agonizing slowness, inclining her face; his lips have barely brushed hers—

 _You may kiss your bride_

—when Doc barks loudly, making them both jump.

 _So much for timing._

"He, uh, he probably needs to go out," she says, sounding disappointed.

"He probably does." He doesn't take his eyes off her, but Doc for all that he's missed Addison appears unimpressed by the reconciliation of master and mistress, insinuating his cold nose between them until Derek stands up, reluctantly.

"Good boy," he tells the waiting Doc, who inexplicably turns to lick Addison's hand in response. He's about to ask if Addison wants to join them—one thing she never complained about, when she lived here, was how still and starry the sky was for Doc's nighttime walks—but one look at her face and it's obvious how tired she is.

"I'm going to go out with him. You stay." He pauses. "We won't be long."

"I hope not." She ruffles the fur on Doc's head as he pants appreciatively.

He thinks better of kissing her goodbye—that one brief contact promised so much more and if this is the sea change it felt like, the line in the sand—well, he'd like to make it count.

So it can wait.

..

Outside, the moon is low as Doc makes his slow and steady way toward the lake.

"Not too far, boy." Derek keeps easy pace, one eye on the warmly lit windows of the trailer. This whole day has felt like a comedy of errors, trying and failing to get a moment alone with his wife. He blinks into the mist—it's cool, fresh, rising off the lake and replacing the warm humidity of the day with something cleaner and more promising.

Doc barks, making his way back at a reasonably steady pace. It's not running, and Doc is noticeably weak, but he focuses on the Doc present with him now, rather than comparing him to the stronger and healthier dog who first arrived at the trailer.

This Doc is panting happily at Derek, sniffing the grass with interest, taking clear pleasure in the night air as much as his human companion. He recalls the vet's words what feels like a lifetime ago, when they inquired hesitantly about Doc's future.

 _As long as he's still enjoying his life … then he's okay. And you two know best when he's enjoying his life._

He respects the viewpoint as a physician. He understands it as a person.

And he doesn't want to rush Doc.

But he does want to get back inside the trailer so they can keep enjoying their lives.

Doc must want the same thing, though, maybe realizing the import of having his mistress home at last, because it's not long at all before he's nudging Derek's hand with his cold wet nose and urging him back toward the trailer.

He pauses at the door for a moment, remembering the way they separated when he took Doc out for his walk, the energy in the air, the promise they would pick up where they left off. All that buildup, the near misses all day long.

Derek is as energized as Doc is noticeably tired as they makes his way back into the trailer and toward the bed, where …

… Addison is lying on top of the covers in summery nightdress she must have left here.

Fast asleep.

The energy drains out of him in one exhale, but he can't be too disappointed about it when she looks so peaceful and so tired all at once, one cheek is resting against the back of her hand, her long hair spread out on the pillow.

The rest of their night can wait.

He takes a moment to study his sleeping wife. Her face is soft in repose; her reading glasses are halfway down her nose, a medical journal open on the bed next to her. He can help noticing that she's opened right to the page he marked for her: an article he read a few nights ago and automatically flagged as something she'd want to read.

Meanwhile, Doc looks at the bed and Derek finds himself smiling despite the somewhat anticlimactic end to the evening. Murmuring praise to the dog for staying quiet and not waking his mistress, Derek helps him onto the bed. Doc settles next to Addison's legs—no fool, that dog—and Derek forages for a lightweight blanket from the closet, figuring it won't hurt for all of them to sleep on top of the covers on a summer night.

Addison is deeply asleep, not waking as he readies himself for bed or spreads the blanket over her, pausing for a brief good night to his son.

Very carefully, he removes her reading glasses, folding them and placing them on the night table. And then there's nothing left to do but ease himself over her into the remaining space on the bed, tussling a bit with Doc for the covers before they're all settled.

His last thought before he, too, drifts to sleep, listening to his wife's peaceful breathing next to him, is that while they may not have sealed their recommitment with a kiss or anything more than that either … this night has been anything but disappointing.

..

Something cold and wet wakes her up. She's dreaming about Doc again and his alarm clock of a nose, maybe, a lifelike dream back in the trailer.

So realistic that she can almost hear Doc's wheezy breaths and feel his warm breath against her. So realistic that she can hear another set of breaths too, and when she puts out a hand, expecting to feel the other half of an empty hotel bed, she bumps up against a very not empty, very not hotel –

"Good morning to you too."

 _It's not realistic. It's … real._

For a moment, while Derek props up on an elbow and looks at her with sleepy-eyed amusement, she tries to piece together the night before. Slowly, she remembers, the last piece fitting into place when she sees her husband's hand resting in the fur of their sleeping dog.

His left hand.

She stares for a moment at the familiar thick gold band, the one she thought she might never see again, the intensity of last night's conversation washing over her. Until the moment she saw the ring, she wasn't sure he'd even kept it. For all she knew, it was at the bottom of Puget Sound, which is where it felt like he would prefer _her_ when she first arrived in Seattle.

Derek made it very clear, the day things blew up in the call room, that she had no right to inquire about the ring.

But that was then.

Last night was last night.

And now, her husband lying next to her in bed with sleep tousled hair, that one lock falling toward his brow like it always does – this is now.

She looks from his familiar face to his ring and back again.

"I fell asleep," she realizes.

"You fell asleep," he confirms, smiling at her.

"I'm sorry."

He shakes his head. "You were tired."

"I know, but—"

"And you're pregnant."

She can't argue with that. Automatically, her hand moves to cup her bump through the silky fabric of her nightgown. She waits; mornings are usually a good time to—

"He's moving."

"He is?" Derek asks eagerly.

Every time, his excitement just slays her. He moves closer, Doc somewhat grudgingly moving to the foot of the bed so he too can cup a hand around the place where their son is growing. She fits her palm over it to guide him to the right place, laughing a little at the way his eyes widen when he, too, feels it.

"He's moving a lot," Derek says, sounding impressed.

"He's practicing." Addison smiles at him. "Well, that … or he wants you to take him fishing again."

It's his turn to smile now. "If his mother is planning to move back in … he'll have a lot more opportunity to fish."

She swallows, afraid for a moment to be too eager before she remembers this is Derek. No one can say he hasn't seen the worst of her, and he's still here, and he's wearing his ring, and she's as tired of strategizing her next move as he is of surprises.

"She is," Addison tells him quietly, "planning to move back in. If you want her to."

"I do," he says.

And then Doc barks, perhaps deciding _this_ is the rom-com moment where the leads to realize how ridiculous they've been and just—

"He kicked again!"

Addison laughs a little, reminded of why most rom-com leads aren't visibly pregnant.

She's been an OB for a long time, and she's well aware babies are the ultimate unscripted stars. You can't exactly use them to move a plot along.

"I guess he's trying to tell us he's happy about moving back in," Addison says.

 _Okay, fine, you can use them to move a plot along._

Derek seems amused; he reaches out to brush a stray lock of hair off her face and it's sweet.

It's a nice gesture.

But the contact is electric, reminding her that along with her tiredness, with her changing shape, the second trimester has gifted her with something she hasn't exactly been able to enjoy.

Not yet, anyway.

He gets it too; she sees the light in his eyes change and hey, it's never a bad start to a morning. The way he's looking at her is making her cheeks flush, her skin is already tingling where he touched her (pregnancy hormones, her story and she's sticking to it) … but she finds herself, under his gaze, feeling a little shy.

Which is ridiculous.

Imagine feeling shy with someone she's been with as long as Derek. At this point she probably knows his naked body better than her own, and vice versa. And it's not like it's the first time since Mark, and Meredith. They've had sex since then: first awkward, even boring (though, as her pregnancy will attest, still evolutionarily effective), and then more enjoyable and even passionate as they reconnected. But that was still before. This is what she does: she makes lists, and she draws lines.

They put it all out on the table: her secrets. His anger. They're behind them and now, they're in the after.

She challenged him to choose her, and he did, and all that's left is to seal the deal. She's reminded of their wedding night, when they teased each other about what it would be like when they already knew each other so well. They'd been lovers nearly half a decade by the time they exchanged rings and yet somehow, that night was still different.

Five years in, it was a first all its own.

 _Maybe it's the rings_ , that's what Derek suggested, only half teasing, and she remembers laughing a little, hazy with afterglow. _That's what it's about?_ She teased him. _Sure_ , he said; he sounded more serious by then, and his kisses tasted of champagne. _It's about the rings._

He's felt the air change, she can tell, because he smiles down at her without touching her. "I'll make some coffee," he says, but she stops him with a hand on his arm before he can get out of bed.

She loves him for stopping, for not pushing it, but if he's doing it for her … he should know it's not what she wants. She's not too shy to tell him as much, but then he's the one who looks almost bashful. It takes years off his face.

"I don't want to hurt you," he says finally, quietly.

"You mean because of the baby?" She rests a hand on her bump.

"That too."

She swallows hard. "I want this, Derek."

Tentatively, she reaches out and touches the ring on his finger. All this time without it and it somehow seems like part of his hand again, the way it used to.

It still fits.

She kisses him first.

 _He_ put the ring back on, _he_ chose her, and now she's choosing him. She lets all the built up tension of missing him guide her, the way her body has ached for his touch. If her career has taught her anything it's that a pregnant woman's body has its own mysteries and hers has been waiting for this moment.

And it remembers him, welcoming him back like he never left. She arches under his touch, his hands lighting the sparks they always have. New and familiar all at once. It's been nearly twelve years since that night at the Plaza, the last time his ring was new.

She'll remember this morning the same way, though. She's sure of it. As a beginning, and as a testimony to the miles they've already traveled together.

"I thought you didn't like when I got worked up."

"Very funny." He moves a damp strand of hair off her face. "There's worked up ... and then there's worked up."

"If you say so."

But she doesn't object when he vaults over her supine body to get her a cold bottle of water. Does he know what she needs, or does she need what he gives him? It's hard to know, after this many years. They were so young when they met; they grew together.

"What?" she asks when she sees him looking at her; he's running light fingers down one of her bare arms.

"Nothing."

She raises an eyebrow.

"You look … different, that's all," he says finally.

"Let me guess." She follows his gaze to her breasts. "My hair is thicker?"

"… that too."

He's not even pretending not to stare; after all their time together, she's flattered, even though she can't really take credit for what's happened to her body.

"Different, huh?" She props herself up a little, seeing him swallow hard. "Different bad, or different good?"

"Different good," he says, "and you know it."

She laughs a little at his hungry gaze.

"Is that—or should I say _are they_ —why you want me to move back in?"

"Definitely not," he says, with reassuring speed.

"But you're not complaining about them, either."

" … definitely not," he repeats.

…

"I like the trailer." It's the first thing she's said in a while; it's been quiet except for their peaceful breaths and Doc's slightly louder, slightly grunting ones.

"You like the – Addison." He makes a show of touching her forehead with the back of his hand. "Are you running a fever?"

She shakes her head, suppressing a smile. "It's not that crazy, Derek. I've said good things about the trailer before."

"Name one."

"I said that it's …" She searches her memory. "Compact!" she says finally, triumphantly.

"Is that a good thing?"

"It is if you want to make the bed while you're in the kitchen."

His outraged expression makes her laugh, and then he's pulling her close, making her laugh again when he suggests her uncharacteristic affinity for the trailer is just afterglow.

She can't deny the glow, anyway, warm and golden over the whole of the inarguably compact trailer. Concentrated on the bed. The beating heart under her cheek.

"So you admit it, then." His hand is moving rhythmically down her spine, soothing her and waking the muscles all at once. "You love the trailer."

"I didn't say love."

"You said love," he counters, "without saying the word _love._ "

They both ponder that for a while.

"The trailer is … compact," she says after long moments of silence.

He laughs, sounding like it's in spite of himself. "Don't deny it, Addie. You love the trailer."

"I don't love the trailer."

"You like the trailer."

"I take the Fifth."

He pushes some of her hair back to see her face, his eyes wide. "You actually like the trailer."

"I _just_ said—"

"You like it."

"Shut up," she says without aggression, but still grumpily, as he smiles triumphantly above her.

"It's a great trailer," he says.

"It's a compact trailer," she counters, flinching with a half-shriek when his response is to run his fingers up her ribcage.

They tussle for a moment before he leans back against the pillows, settling her against him. She enjoys the familiar feel of his skin, the way his chest rises and falls under her cheek with his breaths. He smells familiar and, in spite of or maybe because of everything, safe.

It's compact in the trailer, but it's warm. It's nice.

"I _might_ like the trailer. A little," she admits finally.

"That's all I'm saying."

They're both silent for a moment as he plays with a strand of her hair; she's tired, sort of, but she feels energized too. Like her body is waking up.

"You actually like the trailer," he repeats.

"Okay, Derek, let it go."

He doesn't, unsurprisingly.

"You want to move back in."

"Unfair." She pokes his shoulder with one finger; he catches her hand and draws it to his lips. " _You_ live here. It's not like I'm moving into the trailer alone."

This seems to mollify him. "You don't want to … move out, though? With me," he adds hastily, and the fact that he had to say it makes her sad for a moment.

But then the fact that he _did_ say it helps, quite a bit.

She considers her answer. A few months ago, she would have leapt at the chance to move out of the trailer. And a few months ago, she would never have offered.

He's asking now—not cold or sarcastic, not taunting her or starting an argument. He actually seems to want to know.

 _Yes_ , she should say. _Yes, I want to move out. Anywhere, any house, any apartment, anything that's not a damn tin can on wheels._

Of course that's what she should say.

"I, um …"

"You want to stay," he interprets.

She doesn't respond.

"Addison Shepherd wants to live in a trailer."

"Shut up," she says halfheartedly, for the second time this morning; it's hard to be annoyed with him when he's running one of his warm hands from waist to hip and back again, fitting her securely against him. She feels better than she has in weeks. Months. Maybe more.

"I'm not arguing. I think it's great."

She ignores him.

"Just checking, though, you want to watch a baby crawl around this trailer?"

She rolls her eyes; if he's not going to let it go, neither will she.

"You know what? I think I might."

He laughs in spite of himself; she feels the rumble of it under her cheek. She pushes herself up onto her forearms so she can see his face, smiling at the way his gaze drops down immediately to see more of her.

"I might still have some surprises left, you know," she says silkily, resting a palm on his chest, pausing a little as she considers what that word has meant to them in the past.

"That's okay. Surprises are fine." He pauses, getting it too. "The ones that aren't secrets. Secrets … are less fine."

"We're finished with secrets," she says quickly.

"I know." He leans in for another kiss, resting a hand on her bump when he pulls back. "Are you going to say hello?" he asks quietly, smiling at the space where their son is growing. "He's quiet," he comments.

"Well, he's broody. Serious. You know. Takes after his father."

"Excuse me?"

"Mopey," she continues. "A real—"

"Take it back," he says firmly, pulling her against him in a very unfair manner when he knows her ticklish spots so well.

"Don't you dare," she says, just as firmly, but in vain.

They're just starting to wrestle it out—again—in a delightfully non-serious way … when it starts to turn serious.

He notices immediately, of course he does, as she starts to move against him intentionally rather than just teasingly.

"Really?" he asks, sounding impressed.

"Second trimester," she says defensively. "Plus, I'm making up for lost time."

 _Making up for lost time._

They both are, really.

"Derek – are you saying no?"

"Does it look like I'm saying no?"

It doesn't feel like it, anyway; she doesn't say it out loud but she doesn't need to.

"I'm not complaining," he says firmly.

"I noticed."

She laughs a little with surprise when he pulls her against him—harder this time, though still with care around her new shape.

"How many more weeks in the second trimester?" he asks, and the hunger in his eyes goes straight to the core of her. It's everything she remembers about her husband that one minute he's making her laugh and the next he's making her … something else entirely.

She's missed that.

"About eight weeks," she says, "give or take."

"Yeah?" He smiles at her as he shifts them both, settling over her. "Let's not waste any more time, then."

She doesn't say anything, first because she doesn't have to and then because she's not sure what she _would_ say, she's too busy enjoying the feel of him and marveling at how non-tired _she_ feels—

 _Thank you, second trimester_.

It's so good, and apparently the movie is over now because this it: they've made up. She's moving back in, they're making up for a _second_ time, he's wearing his ring, and she feels foolish for having been so worried about her mother.

So Carolyn called Bizzy. Big deal. Her mother has never shown an interest in her life and now is hardly going to be the time to start. She has mommy issues and she'd never deny it but all the hope that's coursing through her reminds her she can handle those in due course. She doesn't have to let them ruin these moments she's fought so hard for.

Roll credits.

They're done.

Done in the best possible way—the way where you're just beginning.

And then the phone rings.

"Don't answer it," Derek says immediately.

It's tempting, but … she took an oath.

"Derek. _Derek._ " Gently, she untangles herself. "Honey, let me just check to see if it's a patient."

He releases her at those magic words, but keeps talking.

"Tell them to deliver their own baby," he's suggesting as she reaches reluctantly for her phone. "Tell them to call a taxi."

She looks at the screen.

"Tell them—"

"It's not a patient."

"Good." He reaches for her again, but she holds up the phone to stop him.

"It's my brother."

"… less good."

"Derek." She makes a face. "I'm sorry. Let me just talk to him quickly – I guess I might as well get a handle on the whole … Bizzy thing." She waves her hand, as if a single gesture can encompass _my insane family of origin and its very deeply unapologetically WASPy matriarch._

The whole _Bizzy thing_ does remain pleasantly muted after what a nice night they had … and what a very nice morning they're still having.

And it's not like she wants to stop.

She could call him back … but then Archer is so hard to get a hold of.

"Five minutes," she promises Derek, then lifts an eyebrow. "You can wait that long, can't you?"

"I guess we'll find out.

"I guess we will." She gives him a quick kiss, amused by his downcast expression, as the phone continues to ring. "Stay right there."

"Archie?"

"Well, if it isn't the Virgin Mary." Her brother's familiar voice travels down the line unimpeded by whatever distance separates them—miles, years. It's always been this way and Archer always sounds the same: Unruffled. Unrepentant. And vaguely amused.

"I've been trying to call you for – no, I didn't know you were in California," she says as she listens to his voice on the other end of the phone. "Since when are you in California?"

"Hey, nothing I have to say could be as interesting as your big news, sis." He sounds like he's smiling. "Your big _confusing_ news. Aren't you divorced?"

"No, I'm not divorced," she says quickly, seeing Derek's frown out of the corner of her eyes.

"Oh," Archer says casually. "Wishful thinking, I suppose."

It's her turn to frown. "Really, Archie."

"A pregnant divorcée. At your age. Very outré."

"I just said I'm not divorced," she hisses, throwing Derek an apologetic look as she swings her legs off the bed, stepping into her slippers. This isn't seeming much like a naked-in-bed talk.

"Addie, I'm not judging you."

Addison grimaces as she fumbles for her robe.

"Really? Because you sound like you're judging me."

"Nah. Come on, I must have a kid or two out there by now."

"Ah, but _you_ are a whore."

"True," he says thoughtfully. "Then again, my baby sister did her husband's best friend _in_ the marital home, so what would that make her?"

"Stupid," she says, flinching at the memory. "It makes me stupid."

"You're not stupid," Archer says, his voice softening now. "Hey—you okay up there in … Portland or wherever?"

"Seattle," she corrects him.

"Like I said. Wherever."

She can't help but smile a little at his dismissive tone. Archer is a snob—he'd be the last person to deny it—and she can't deny that she's missed him.

"Look, Archie, I haven't called Bizzy."

"I heard."

She swallows. "Can you just—I don't know, can you talk to her for me?"

"I could," Archer says slowly, "but wouldn't it be easier to talk to her yourself?"

"I just told you. I haven't called her. And I don't want to," she admits.

"Not on the phone, sis. In person."

She shakes her head. "What are you talking about?"

"She's flying out there," Archer says, sounding confused. "All the way to Portland or wherever. Didn't she tell you?"

"She's … what?" Addison sinks onto the kitchen bench, waving a hand weakly toward Derek when he looks up with concern at her tone. "No, Archie, no, that's not a good idea. Can you just tell her not to —"

"Too late for that," Archer says, sounding supremely unbothered. "She was wheels up an hour ago."

An hour ago.

An _hour_ ago.

Which means that Bizzy … is already on her way to Seattle.

And all Addison can do is stare at the phone in horror as she feels the credits start to roll on a very different movie from the one she planned.

* * *

 _To be continued, of course. And I know, I know, but they can't just bask in the glow of the ... afterglow forever, not when there are Montgomerys on the loose. You knew this was coming, but maybe the next chapter will surprise you a little anyway? At least now Team Shepherd is together for whatever happens. Plus, moving back in? Doc will be so happy (not just Doc). Thank you again for reading and I hope you'll review and let me know what you think. Reviews make my tired fingers happy and my Addek brain prolific. See you next QPQ Sunday!_


	34. Toxic, Part I

**A/N:** QPQ is back! Thank you to everyone who reached out with interest and support over the last crazy couple of months. I know all our lives have been affected and as I have been able to eke out a little more free time, I'm especially grateful for everyone who's been providing distraction and entertainment during these tough times. ( **xxLitleBlackDressxx** , I'm looking at you and your delicious Addek slow burn story that lifts my mood every time you update!) I am doing my best to carve out writing time where I can, and I have a few things up my sleeve. More updates are coming, so don't give up on whatever you've been waiting for (to my loyal MerDer Patsy, I have something up my sleeve for you that I think you will like).

 **So** , this chapter will be posted in two parts (unsurprisingly, it's huge), with the second part coming later this week.

It's been a while, so if you don't want to reread the last chapter, a reminder that Archer called at the end of the last chapter, interrupting some long awaited afterglow, to warn Addison that Bizzy (who had been given the happy Sheplet news by Carolyn weeks ago, apparently) was on her way to Seattle.

I hope you enjoy this chapter!

* * *

 _ **Toxic, Part I**_

 _Gestational Age: Twenty Weeks  
Baby is the Size of: a banana (apparently having slimmed down from previously pudgy mango in time for the ever-judgmental Bizzy's visit)  
Baby's Extended Family: remains unpredictable, geography-wise  
In Particular, Baby's Maternal Grandmother: is arriving any minute in Seattle. Seattle!  
Number of Previous Trips to Seattle for Said Grandmother: zero  
Amount of Information Previously Released to Said Grandmother About Baby's Existence: zero  
Number of Positive Overall Visits by Baby's Grandmother, Ever: zero  
Baby's Mother: is considering Witness Protection  
Baby's Father: is annoyingly optimistic  
We'll See: how long that lasts  
_

Bizzy is en route to Seattle.

Bizzy, as in Beatrice Forbes Montgomery, as in the baby's maternal grandmother. The one Addison never told her mother about.

"I'm trying to decide," and she stands in front of what passes for a decent mirror in the trailer, "if it's more like a car crash, or a capsized boat."

"Addison."

She points a finger in his direction. "You're right. It's a downed plane. A downed _private_ plane, obviously." She straightens the maternity blouse she thought looked pretty damned good last week—and her husband seemed to agree, based on how much he seemed to be studying the way the intricate ruching hugged her body when he thought no one was looking. This morning, though?

She doesn't see the deep violet color that makes her eyes look greener, something Savvy noticed in college. She doesn't see the way the delicate tailoring smooths her shoulders and flatters her new curves.

She sees the following, in no particular order:

A tawdry color.

A geriatric pregnancy—and a lumpy one at that.

"Is this blouse tacky?"

"No," Derek says immediately, having been well trained over the years; it's decent husbanding but she frowns at her reflection anyway.

"I'm changing."

"Don't change."

She turns to him, sizing up his outfit. "Maybe you should change."

"I'm not changing. And neither are you." He lifts his chin toward her reflection, behind her. "You look beautiful."

"I look pregnant."

"You are pregnant," he says patiently, "and Bizzy knows that."

She can't help shuddering a little.

"Is it too late to move? Let's move to Cleveland. I hear Cleveland is nice." She turns back to the mirror, now focusing on whether the black skirt she's wearing is the exactly kind of trumpet shape she was going for, or if she looks like a bassoon. She runs this by Derek, who looks like even his best husbanding is starting to wear thin.

"Have you ever been to Cleveland?"

"No," Addison admits. "But remember my OB fellow that one year, the one who—"

"Nicey," he fills in.

"Nicey." Addison nods.

Fine, her name was Niecy, but she earned the nickname from her cohort before Addison met her. To this day, she remains convinced she was the truly _nicest_ person she ever met, and when Nicey—er, Niecy—took her excellent obstetrical skills to head up a low income clinic, no one was surprised. The Shepherds were still getting a Christmas card each year by the time they left Manhattan, now featuring an equally nice-looking man and two adorable—and probably very nice—children.

"Nicey was from Cleveland," Addison reminds him.

"And that's enough for you to move there?" Derek looks amused. "I can barely get you to admit you like Seattle after all this time—"

"That's different."

"Addison. You don't have to do this."

"What, meet Bizzy's plane?" She turns to him, propping a hand on her hip. "You've met Bizzy, right?"

"I've met Bizzy."

"And she's flying here, to Seattle, after _your_ mother decided to tell her I was pregnant—don't look at me like that, Derek, I'm not mad at her. I'm not!"

"Good," he says, "because it was … not the brightest decision, but she meant well."

"Famous last words." Addison looks at her reflection again. Addison in the Mirror looks … well, far happier than she should, but that has nothing to do with Bizzy's impending arrival and everything to do with the morning's events _before_ her brother's phone call.

She'd pinch herself to make sure it's real but she doesn't have to; Derek's hand is resting on her shoulder now, his left, and she and Addison in the Mirror can both see the thick gold band on his fourth finger.

Slowly but surely, the last daisy petal falls.

 _He hates me not._

"It might not be that bad," Derek offers.

He's such an optimist.

Maybe it's genetic, like loving breakfast, and she rests a hand against her bump as if to test the baby's optimism. He's quiet, and if he's not pacing the womb frantically then maybe he _is_ an optimist like his father.

Fine, optimism. She can do optimism.

Derek thinks Bizzy's visit, or whatever it is, won't be that bad?

With some effort, she searches her memory for the best visits she's had with Bizzy.

She's going to list them.

Any minute now.

 _One._ Hmm. There was … oh yes, the time inclement weather left Bizzy to stay an extra week in Mount Desert Island, which delayed her return to Connecticut … in turn relieving Addison from a command performance at the brownstone for one of her mother's pet charities. The details escape her now, but the relief? That, she remembers.

And … that's about it.

(Addison may be a listmaker by nature, but certain things just don't add up to a list.)

"I'm not being a pessimist," she informs her husband before he can say anything.

He looks somewhat confused, perhaps because she started the conversation as if they were mid-debate.

"You're not being a pessimist," he repeats slowly. "But … " he prompts.

And it's Derek, so it's not worth trying to argue:

 _I didn't say but._

 _You didn't have to say it. The but was there._

 _A but can't just be there. You have to say a but._

 _Maybe some people do. But not you._

" _But_ … I can't actually remember a visit from Bizzy, any visit, that was remotely positive."

Derek considers this. "There was that storm off the coast of Maine …"

"That was a good storm."

They both pause, remembering. Addison in the Mirror squares her shoulders a little.

"Technically speaking, that was a non-visit."

"Technically speaking … you're right." He cups her cheek with one warm palm when she turns to face him. "Addie … "

" _Thoroughly Modern Mom_ has a whole page of questions you're supposed to ask your mother about when she was pregnant with you," Addison says, focusing on adjusting the collar of his shirt. "And _Getting Older, Getting Wiser_ —that's the geriatric one Nancy sent me," she adds wryly, "has an entire chapter on this … information you're supposed to get from your mother, assuming she's not in the great beyond or whatever."

"And you want to get information from Bizzy?" he asks doubtfully.

She looks up at him from under her lashes. "Spoken by someone who knows Bizzy."

He's still holding her face, the touch of his skin against hers comforting, and she sighs.

"I don't know anything about her pregnancies, either one of them. I mean, I can assume things—Bizzy complained, the Captain smoked a cigar and probably screwed a few of the prettier nurses."

"Addison." His hands close on the shoulders of her purple blouse.

"I'm guessing twilight sleep was involved," she continues. "And maybe a G&T or two. Or ten."

"Addie."

"I know, she's not exactly forthcoming, usually, but she flew out here. She obviously has something to … say, or do, right? Maybe she wants to talk about … the baby." Her voice trails off and she hates how young she sounds, how pathetic.

Like someone who hasn't been sufficiently burned by Bizzy already.

Derek seems to hear it, because he bows his head a little to rest against hers. Just for a moment, for a shared breath, but it helps.

"I'm okay," she says, leaning back and giving him the most reassuring smile she has.

His eyes are soft, a little sad. It's hard to believe how _happy_ she was feeling earlier this morning. How happy they both were.

"You don't have to go meet the plane, you know," he says quietly.

"I do, though. I really do."

"Addie."

"You don't have to come with me," she offers as brightly as she can manage.

"I do, though." He borrows her words. "I really do."

"So … we're going."

"So we're going. You, me, and … junior." He pauses, resting a hand against her bump. "Bizzy is going to want you to name him after some … Revolutionary War general or something, isn't she."

Addison can tell from his expression he's remembering more than one instance of one or the other of Bizzy's relatives droning on about the Bradford lineage. (Not that she wouldn't have wanted her then-boyfriend's first impression of her family home to be the series of elephant tusks poached—er, hunted—by Addison Bradford himself generations back, prominently displayed in her father's study.) Come to think of it, that just might make a less positive list.

 _Worst Visits with Bizzy …_

Oh, but she can't start now, she'll be late to meet the plane.

..

And so, after a buildup that somehow seems both too much and not enough, Derek finds himself standing on the small runway of the private airfield next to his wife, who is holding herself rigidly still in the warm mid-summer air. Her eyes shaded with dark sunglasses, but he can tell that Addison is watching closely as the door of the private plane yawns open.

Next to him, Addison tenses even more.

And then she's there.

In Seattle, where he never would have expected her.

Bizzy … in the flesh.

Pausing to take in the scene before her, not seeming to think much of it from what he can tell, adjusting her scarf casually; she looks as unruffled as ever.

If the humid air bothers her, there's no indication in the crispness of her clothing or her impassive expression. … what they can make out of it, anyway, since sunglasses as dark as her daughter's are shading her eyes.

 _Why are you here?_

That won't do for a greeting.

Bizzy steps regally down from the plane

" … welcome to Seattle." She sounds a bit like a tour guide, but Derek supposes it's better than some of the four-letter versions she must have nixed.

"Addison," Bizzy says, nodding coolly in greeting before doing the same for Derek.

She says nothing to acknowledge the news of her impending grandchild, not that he's surprised—in his experience, it's what she _doesn't_ say that can be the most cutting, but he doesn't have nearly his wife's experience decoding that particular Rosetta Stone.

Her grandchild, though.

He thinks about the way his sisters' children fling themselves at his own mother in excitement when they see her. He can't exactly imagine his child doing that with Bizzy. Or anything with Bizzy, for that matter.

"How was your flight?" Addison asks; he recognizes the stiff tone she often adopts when speaking to her mother.

"The air is very damp here," Bizzy observes, which based on his wife's indrawn breath beside him must mean something he can't understand.

 _Sorry, still don't speak WASP._

"I didn't know you were coming to Seattle." Addison says, sounding rather like she can't help herself.

Bizzy studies her for a long moment before responding, then lowers her sunglasses just enough that they can see her eyes for the first time, directing her next words to her daughter.

"You know, dear, for women who are showing in the face, a less severe hairstyle can do wonders."

With that, Bizzy replaces her dark glasses and saunters past them toward the glass-enclosed private terminal where, no doubt, she'll have a few choice words for the staff.

" … nice to see you too." Addison says quietly as her mother walks away. She shakes her head, turning to Derek. "Why did I expect anything different?"

Derek watches a uniformed man open the glass door for Bizzy with one gloved hand; he seems very overdressed for the July heat but if appearances matter—and he knows they do, for his mother-in-law—then gloves must have been the way to go.

Then he turns back to his wife.

"Maybe you're an optimist after all," he says.

Addison raises her eyebrows. "You realize only an optimist could think that."

"Then it's a good thing you married one." He offers her his arm. "Come on. Let's catch up with Bizzy before she fires anyone else."

All in all … relocating to Cleveland probably wouldn't have been the worst idea.

..

Glancing at the passenger seat when he can,Derek does his best to focus on the road while Addison is practically vibrating beside him.

He's become adept, over the years, at locating the precise points of possible interjection in his wife's flipouts, as categorized by type, and as developing throughout their careers. The library has changed over the years as their professional status has ascended:

Under S, for example:

 _Surgery, Jerk Attending In  
Surgery, Unfairly Missed Out on_

Has been replaced by:

 _Surgery, Intern Incompetence In  
Surgery, Preferred Intern Unavailable to Assist_

There's a routine to her rants, an expectation. A poetry, if you're truly paying attention.

But just as they've had to have conversations for the first time when she found out she was pregnant, and most days since, so have her flipouts changed as well. Fifteen—no, sixteen—years later, and he's still entering new categories.

 _Pregnancy Books, Inherent Sexism of  
Pregnancy Books, Judgmental Tone Therein  
Pregnancy Books, Heaviness Thereof (Resulting in Inability to Rest on Bump)_

Just to name a few.

He has witnessed his fair share of Montgomery-related meltdowns and spent more time than he'd ever care to with the Montgomerys (not counting his wife, of course, but then she's been a Shepherd to him for so long that he doesn't count her in that category).

This, though? Is a first. So he doesn't have an answer to the question when she asks it for the fifth—no, sixth—time since they pulled out of the airfield parking lot.

"Why does she want to have dinner with just me?"

"I don't know," Derek says for the fifth—no, sixth—time.

"You heard how she said it." Addison is staring out the window. " _I'm sure there will be other occasions for you to join, dear,_ " and she does a passable imitation of her mother's words as directed to him. "What other occasions? How long is she staying?"

"… I don't know."

 _Great interjections, Shepherd. Some of your finest work._

"She has something up her sleeve," Addison says, leaning back in her seat; it would seem decided, her posture, except she's said these exact words multiple times since they left the airfield, Bizzy whizzing off before them in a sleek black chauffeured car.

("I guess the driver knew she was coming before we did," Addison whispered to him the uniformed driver loaded Bizzy's bags in deferential silence.)

"Derek."

"Hm?"

"Why does she want to have dinner with _just_ me?"

"I don't know, Addie."

 _Hitting it out of the park again._

"You don't have to go," he offers, trying a different tack, and she rolls her eyes in response.

"Honey, Bizzy flew all the way out here. I can't just _not go_ to dinner. _And_ I have to figure out where to take her. Where am I supposed to take her?"

 _I don't know._

"We can ask Burke for a recommendation," he says, improvising, pleased when her face lights up.

"Ooh, that's a great idea. And then she can blame Preston if something goes wrong with the food or the service or … actually, never mind, she'll find a way to blame me. She always finds a way to blame me."

He wishes he could respond with _I don't know_ , but the truth is, he does know.

He knows her mother blames her.

He knows the effect her mother has on her.

And he's kicking himself for reveling in the warmth of his own family's visit, in his hard-won reconciliation with Addison (the second time), with their reconnection in the trailer last night and this morning.

He could have prepared for this, _should_ have prepared this, except how could he have known?

A Montgomery visit seemed so abstract and unlikely all this time, even when they found out she knew about the pregnancy, even as Addison frantically tried to figure out what her mother's plans. Perhaps he should have guessed that since Bizzy's visit wasn't exactly welcome, she would find some way to make it happen.

Bizzy has a history of appearing only at times that are the least convenient, whether logistically or emotionally.

And it's not like he can apply his one tried and true technique while they're driving, not without a rollover the mere idea of which makes him shudder.

But he does it as soon as they park at the hospital, after he's opened her side of the jeep and helped her down, and after he's decided he doesn't care whose attention they attract. They lean against each other, drawing strength, and he finds himself comforted by the scent of her hair and hoping she feels the—

"Shepherds!"

Startled, he pulls back to see Richard Webber glaring at them from across the parking lot; he looks … rather damp and ruffled; Derek recalls even back to their Manhattan days that Richard never liked summer weather.

"Yes, Chief?"

"Nothing important," Richard says sarcastically as he approaches, "just wondering if my two department heads could save the slow dances for their own time and spend _this_ time actually treating patients in my hospital?"

Addison steps fully away from him, looking embarrassed, straightening the pretty purple blouse he's found distracting each time she's worn it.

"We're going in right now, Chief," Derek says.

"See that you do."

He stalks off with more pep in his step—Richard always did like a good telling off to energize him.

Addison and Derek look at each other; he's this close to apologizing for setting them up for yet another scolding from their boss after the repeated visits from the extended Shepherd family … but she's laughing instead, and after a morning of dreading Bizzy, and then seeing Bizzy?

It's pretty much the nicest sound he could imagine … even if he knows it can't last long.

..

She's fine.

Bizzy is in Seattle.

And it's fine.

Of course it's fine.

They saw her for all of five minutes, if that, before Bizzy was swept away in a town car to a hotel she neglected to identify and Addison didn't ask about lest she be the recipient of a lecture on prying. God forbid her own mother mention any of the five Ws about her surprise stay in the pacific northwest. If Addison didn't already know it was going to be _that_ kind of a visit (is there any other kind?) then this certainly brought it home.

 _Sorry, kiddo._ She rests both hands on her bump, the position she finds herself in often when she's distracted or needs a moment of grounding. A reminder that they are both still there. _This grandmother isn't going to be bringing you cookies or hosting slumber parties. But hey, she gave me a great model to avoid when it comes to parenting so … that's positive, at least?_

Positive—because she's not being pessimistic. She's being realistic, and she's keeping an open mind: the theme of the Shepherd reconciliation (the second one, the sequel: _they're back, and better than ever_ , something like that).

Bizzy wants to have dinner with Addison, alone.

Fine.

She hasn't dropped so much as a hint as to where she's staying, why she came _now_ , how long she's staying, why she stayed silent over the news of her impending grandchild, or why she thinks Addison is _showing in the face._

(Fine, that last part isn't as time sensitive.)

So maybe the visit will be … fine.

After all, there are just a few simple rules and roadblocks when it comes to successful interactions with Bizzy, right?

 **Rule Number One.** _Don't Mumble._ Oh, let's just start with a simple one. Don't even think about being intimidated just because Bizzy is intimidating, because that might make you—heaven forbid—elide a word or two, and that's simply not _done._ If Addison had a nickel for every _Don't mumble, Addison,_ and _Addison, don't mumble,_ and _Addison, stop mumbling_ , from the first decade or two of her life, she'd have … more money to add to the trust fund she'll never touch.

 **Rule Number Two.** _Speak Up._ This one is related to the first and hey, let's just file them all under Addison Would You Please Remember Your Manners.

 **Rule Number Three.** _Stay Quiet._ It seems counterintuitive, doesn't it? Welcome to the confusing minefield of her formative years. When one speaks to Bizzy, one mustn't mumble, but one also mustn't speak to Bizzy unless it's the appropriate time and if you know a four-year-old who can figure this out, she'd love to meet her. And so, presumably, would her mother. (She wouldn't. Addison has never known her mother to look at any child with anything other than thinly veiled contempt and perhaps a soupçon of disgust.)

 **Rule Number Four.** _Don't Be a Child._ Ooh, this one doesn't bode so well for her breakfast-loving baby, but the womb should protect him for now, at least. This rule works doubly: Bizzy loathes children (see Rule Number Three) and also loathes childishness, which means that the few times resembling happiness in the Montgomery house (not home), when she and her brother would make each other laugh, were met with sharp rebuke if Bizzy caught wind of it. As for actually being a child? Addison recalls wincing the first few times she saw one of her sister-in-law's toddler children reach chubby fingers toward Carolyn's hair or her glasses, but her mother-in-law never slapped an inquisitive hand or scolded her daughters for not properly corralling their offspring. (Say what you will about Addison's mother-in-law—and she will—children were allowed to be children chez Shepherd.)

 **Rule Number Five.** _Don't Be Improper._ This goes for Archer flirting openly with the prettier maids as well as Addison sunning herself on the balcony. Rather unfairly, it does not seem to go for her father's many peccadillos, but then again Addison thanklessly hid as many as she could from her mother, so there's that.

 **Rule Number Six.** _Don't Interrupt._ If a lot of these rules sound like they were meant for children, and that means Bizzy never actually developed an adult relationship with her daughter, well … she'll just leave this rule to speak for itself.

 **Rule Number Seven.** _Don't Show Weakness._ Here's a rule that wasn't spoken in so many words, but Addison learned the hard way to hide what was left of her tender underbelly—really more of a faintly sensitive regular belly by the time she could have put this rule into words, but this is a key requirement and one she tried to school Derek on as early as possible. Bizzy could sink her perfectly (but subtly) manicured claws into anyone's weakest spot, so discreetly and so carefully wrapped in WASPy etiquette that you wouldn't even notice until you were already bleeding out.

 **Rule Number Eight.** _Don't Cry._ It's related to Rule Number Seven, but this one was explicit and strictly enforced, to the point that it took years with Derek before she stopped apologizing each time she cried. (She's pretty good, now, at avoiding that crutch but a little extra time with the Montgomerys and it pops right back out again. Though she should be grateful, come to think of it, because in some of their worse arguments after some interaction with her mother it never failed to soften Derek to see that remaining Pavlovian response. _Thank you, childhood trauma, for the marital forgiveness._

 **Rule Number Nine.** _Get Bizzy a Drink (and Get it Right)_. Res ipsa, and don't even consider rocks.

 **Rule Number Ten.** _Don't Embarrass the Family._ It sounds rather delightfully mafia-esque written out that way, darker and more interesting than she considers her own pallid and stifling roots. But it's a strict rule and one Addison is fairly certain she's broken unforgivably any number of times in recent memory: sleeping with her husband's best friend (well, getting caught, anyway), letting her husband move across the country (her fault), moving there herself, _staying_ there, and now getting pregnant at what Bizzy must see as her heinously advanced age. (Bizzy was heavily pregnant with Archer by her first youthful anniversary with the Captain; in retrospect, Addison is fairly certain there was a stiff upper lip Let's Just Get it Over With aspect to that timing. By the time Bizzy was Addison's current age, she had two teenagers, and they were … well, no use dwelling on the Montgomery children's unsupervised antics, but let's just say for the sake of the future Sheplet, Addison has learned that if you're not going to supervise your children, you should consider locking up some of the liquor … at least those bottles that could have paid for a year of private school for one of those teenagers … that is, if you were to speak about something as uncouth as money.) This leads her to the eleventh rule, the catch all, the umbrella, the be all and end all of all interaction with Beatrice Forbes Montgomery:

 **Rule Number Eleven.** _Don't Be Unseemly._ In short, but not sum, it is necessary, but not sufficient, to: close your mouth, cross your legs, stand up straight, don't fidget, don't ask questions (but don't be sullen), don't be rude, don't be vulgar, don't speak about things that don't concern you, don't speak about things that are better left unsaid, keep your name out of the papers unless it's your wedding or your obituary and never, ever, _ever_ … ever … let your guard down.

See? Simple as that.

..

"You're nervous," Mark announces, sauntering up to the nurses' desk where Derek has been trying to catch up after their morning away, in that very _Mark_ way as if everyone is supposed to just automatically care what he has to say.

So Derek ignores him, concentrating on the chart in his hands.

"Derek." Mark all but elbows him in the ribs. "What's going on? Is it Addison?"

With supreme self control, Derek manages not to walk away. "Nothing is _going on_ , Mark. I'm sorry if you were hoping for a leg up on the chief's race."

"I was actually concerned."

"Heroic of you," Derek mutters.

"Oh, come on, would you just—"

"Would I just what?" Derek asks, and he actually turns around to meet his former best friend's gaze. "Would I just _what_ , Mark?"

But Mark, as so often when confronted, has nothing to say.

 _Typical._

Mark wasn't wrong, in fairness. There's an underlying anxiety throughout what's left of the morning—which isn't much—and through the twenty minutes he manages to isolate to have lunch with his wife.

(A small, nagging voice prods him, wondering how things might have been different if he could have done this sort of logistical juggling back in New York … but that's a question for another time.)

Truthfully, the scheduling is a bit of a fiasco, but if he's nervous about Bizzy, he can only imagine how Addison feels. At least Derek has been excused from the dinner obligation.

"I'm fine," Addison says in lieu of hello. Her face is an impassive mask—a very pretty one, of course, but a tense one too. She's wound tightly but somehow still glowing; he catches Alex Karev lingering a little too long in the espresso line studying the contours of his superior.

Fresh kid.

Derek butts in front of him casually, resting an elbow on the counter to block his view. "Order me a double?"

"Of course," Addison says, sounding puzzled. He doesn't usually speak his order out loud to his wife—he doesn't have to—but when Karev skulks away, he feels vindicated. He's been with Addison long enough not to be surprised when she attracts male attention, and he has no misconceptions about her ability to handle herself. But that was before. There's something about her pregnancy that's different, that makes a primitive sort of protectiveness cloud his logic. It's an issue he hasn't really examined, and he can deal with another time, when he's not busy keeping his—and Addison's—guard up as much as possible around his mother-in-law.

"Derek?"

He turns.

" … why do you think Bizzy wants to have dinner with me alone? It's strange, right?" she persists when he doesn't respond.

It's strange all right.

The request, but not the strain in the air.

Thus far Bizzy's visit, all five in-person minutes of it, hasn't come between husband and wife … and for that, he's grateful. It's a delicate balance with Addison and her parents; they have the capability to shut her down completely and the dynamic among them is grounded in so much silence Derek has trouble seeing the danger signs before they happen. It's not that Shepherds are such pacifists. There were plenty of shouting matches in his house growing up; Nancy was a notorious hair-puller, and Derek can distinctly remember two different summer barbecues when two of his brothers-in-law, unable to tame the regional rage any longer, came to blows over the Giants versus the Pats. But that was different. That was loud, and even angry, but it was _audible._ He doesn't have the training for the kind of silently furious toxicity that swirls around the elder Montgomerys.

He's never liked it.

How could he?

But that was _before_. Now, Addison is carrying their child. Enough of his own sins have contributed to his pregnant wife's stress; he's not going to let her mother cause any more damage.

Which is why he's sitting in the rather overly warm outdoor portion of the cafeteria (Addison, whose temperature has been bouncing as rapidly as their unborn son does on sleepy evenings, was cold in the air conditioning), listening to Addison ask him, repeatedly, for information he doesn't have on Bizzy's intentions.

"You don't have to go tonight." He takes her hand in his, stilling its drumming on the plastic tray that holds her barely touched lunch. "Addie."

"She came all this way."

"So let me go with you."

"No." She shakes her head firmly enough for her long hair to move on her shoulders. "Bizzy said just me."

 _Bizzy isn't the boss of you, not anymore._

But he doesn't say it. All good intentions aside, he's started painful fights over less; Addison is sensitive about her family of origin, to say the least. He'll pick up the pieces afterwards, of course, but laying any kind of helpful groundwork beforehand is a Herculean task. (Assuming Hercules also had a WASPy mother whose judgmental bearing bordered on the vicious, which would be anachronistic if nothing else.)

"Addison."

"It's fine, Derek. Really." She gives him a smile that wouldn't even have convinced him in 1990, and then rests her chin in her hand.

There's a hard knot in his stomach. It's not hatred, he doesn't want to see it that way. His own mother was unfailingly optimistic when it came to Bizzy, inviting her to any number of backyard barbecues, Superbowl parties, and park picnics to which his mother-in-law always sent the most polite of regrets. Calling her now, to congratulate her on their shared grandchild, was rooted in that same optimism.

Addison calls him an optimist and he is, in some ways, but he's had an intimate view of the damage his in-laws wrought on his wife over the years and there are limits to everything.

He finds himself wishing for an interesting case, at least, to distract him—and one to distract Addison—to pass the rest of the day without having to dwell on Bizzy.

In retrospect, he should have remembered one of the first rules of Chief Stratton, back in their intern days:

 _Be careful what you wish for._

..

He's summoned to a tense meeting, Richard's face set. Mark is already there, and Preston Burke. He looks around automatically for Addison, ready to argue about whatever unfairness is keeping her out of this gathering, but Richard shakes his head, just slightly.

"It may not be safe," he cautions.

"What do you mean?"

They fill him in on the mysterious patient, hushed tones as they volley back and forth on timing constraints and PPE and code green.

"I'm going in," Burke says firmly. "The initial tumor was thoracic and she's exhibiting arrhythmias that I haven't seen under these circumstances. I need to evaluate her."

"And to be part of the big show," Mark muses, and Derek glares at him, annoyed he's even in the room.

"Derek?" Richard prompts.

"It's a potential neurotoxin," he recites, relieved that Addison isn't part of the conversation. She'd have the same medical curiosity they all do, the same concern for the patient … and for the staff who've already been affected, currently recovering on oxygen.

The case is undoubtedly fascinating, but he's thinking less about that … and more about the toxic aspect.

About what he could bring home.

And to whom.

"We've handled contagious pathogens under different circumstances, without undue issue. There's no reason to think, with proper PPE, you'd be in any danger. You … or anyone else," Burke says. His tone is cool, clinical, but Derek can tell from his expression he understands the concern.

"It's a potential neurotoxin," Mark repeats. "But if you can't handle it … "

"Oh, shut up," Derek mutters, then turns to Richard. "I want to talk to Addison first."

"I don't know if someone who has to get his wife's permission to treat a patient would make a very effective Chief," Mark observes, to no one in particular.

No one responds.

"Five minutes," Derek says, and Richard and Preston both nod before Richard turns to Mark, frowning.

"Watch your step, Dr. Sloan. A good chief is more than great hands and even great cases. You need great leadership."

Derek closes the door before he has to hear any more.

..

"Addison!"

He catches up to her in the hallway; she's holding a chart and spins to face him. "Derek. Have you heard about the team who's passing out?" She glances at her watch. "I have to leave soon for dinner, but …"

"She's toxic," he says breathlessly.

"I know, Derek, but she's still my mother, and she did invite me to dinner."

"Not Bizzy." He takes her arm, leading her to a less populated part of the hall; no need to raise the alarm. "The patient. The patient is toxic."

"Toxic. Toxic how?"

He tells her what he knows—which isn't much:

The downed staff.

The sealed room.

"And you're concerned about neurotoxicity."

"I'd like to evaluate her," he nods, "and I think I'm the best option right now, but … I'm not going in if it will put you in danger."

"It won't," Addison says immediately, her hand going to her bump; he covers her hand with his, "you'll have PPE. The room is sealed. Derek, just … be careful."

"I will." He touches her face. "There's a lot they don't know, still. Just … promise me you won't go near her."

"Of course I won't." She shakes her head and he exhales relief.

"Addie …"

"I know." She steps back, still resting a hand on her belly. "Derek … she has children. That patient, I mean. The toxic one."

Resolutely, he nods. "I'm going."

He's waylaid en route to meet with the team by the Chief, who is handing a sad eyed man off to another team—Derek doesn't have to talk to him to realize he's the patient's husband. They must be running additional tests on him.

He looks … tired. Very tired.

But most of all, behind the exhaustion and the resignation, there's fear. Derek meets his eyes only for a moment but it's enough to telegraph the fear, the desperation, _help her_ , _please,_ that's what he says in the moments before the team hustles him away.

..

 _Toxic._

Addison picked up on the buzz before she realized anything to do with toxicity, before she realized what was wrong. She heard the nurses discussing the children— _they're still so little, maybe it's better that way._

A year ago, she would have been shouldering her way into the room, her fear for her patient greater than that for herself. Wanting to help. Trying to help.

But now she's not alone. Now, she has a child growing inside of her.

She has a promise to her husband.

With the code green all non-essential services are halted or rescheduled and the attendings gather in the closest meeting room to OR 3. Derek, she knows, is still being suited up.

The meeting room is safe.

And the area around it.

She goes only close enough that she can see the outline of a few scrub clad figures monitoring the patient. One she recognizes as Mark—of course it's Mark, he never met a high profile case he didn't want, even if it had nothing to do with him.

She stays far enough back that she knows there's no risk. Plus ten extra feet. She's not taking chances, not with the baby she's carrying. Not now.

But she's craning her neck, anxious.

 _They're still so young. Maybe it's better that way._

The patient is a mother. She's a mother too.

She closes her eyes, leaning against the cool plaster of the wall, wishing she could talk to Derek.

It's like tug of war with herself, one foot forward, one back.

 _You took an oath._ She steps forward.

 _You promised Derek._ She steps back.

 _You have a duty to the patient._ Forward.

 _You have a duty to your child._ Back.

 _She's a mother._ Forward.

 _You're a mother._ Back.

A new voice rips into her consciousness, the words terrifying.

"She's waking up. She's waking up!"

* * *

 _To be continued. Thank you, as always, for reading and reviewing. I hope you will share your thoughts with me, because I love hearing them and they remain the best motivation to continue writing and posting. Stay safe and healthy!_


	35. Toxic, Part II

**A/N:** Thank you so much for your comments on the previous update. It seemed appropriate to get this chapter up today since it's both QPQ Sunday and Mother's Day. More Bizzy, here we come.

I hope you enjoy this chapter!

* * *

 _ **Toxic, Part II  
**.._

 _"She's waking up. She's waking up!"_

Before Addison can even react she sees a small blue-scrubbed figure she recognizes exiting the cluster of gathered doctors, grabbing a mask and pushing through the swinging door into the OR.

Toward the patient.

Without PPE.

Addison is well out of the danger zone, but she's close enough to hear Mark shouting into the intercom.

"Grey, get the hell out of there!"

Half a dozen steps and she's calling out to Mark:

"She's awake, she's awake and open on the table!" Addison can't help interjecting and he pivots to glare at her.

"This was your bright idea?" he demands. "Sending the intern canary into the coal mine?"

"You probably wish I had been the one to go in there." Her voice shakes, in spite of herself. His gaze slides to her bump.

"Not everything is about you, Addison." He shakes his head. "And you can tell your husband that too. See, this is why I'm going to be chief."

With that, he turns back to the OR. It's been maybe thirty seconds, but—

"Grey!" He bangs on the partition. "You trying to commit suicide in there?"

A few more tense exchanges before they can all see the patient relax as the propofol takes effect.

But at what cost?

..

Derek Shepherd is nothing if not a professional.

He's clear-headed.

He's focused.

Impending fatherhood doesn't change that.

Except that he has to close his eyes for a moment as he's suited up, because somehow, right now?

Everything feels different.

His heart beats a little faster underneath the layers of protective gear, thinking of the two hearts beating right now, safely out of the danger zone.

..

"Grey!" Mark shouts.

"Is she … ?" Addison's heart speeds up. She's forced herself to keep her distance, but if Meredith passes out, and then they can't get to her in time—

She exhales when she sees Meredith hurtling toward the door, staggering in a way that suggests she might not be on her feet much longer … her face colorless yet somehow satisfied.

… and then she crashes right through the door.

Addison has a moment where everything feels full circle in the strangest of ways: _you caught me, and now I'll catch you?_ And for a millisecond she's breathing in the scent of Lysol and her own perspiration, hunched in the exam room imploring Meredith to keep her secret.

That day, Meredith caught her.

She can't return the favor, though. She shouldn't. As tiny as Meredith is, she still shouldn't.

Except she can't let the other woman fall, either.

Addison can't help it; instinct drives her forward to grab onto Meredith seconds before Mark shoulders in, pushing her out of the way and then catching the intern before she can hit the ground.

With a jolt, time skids back to the present.

"Is she okay?" Addison asks anxiously; she can't see much from her angle. "Mark?"

"She's an idiot." Mark turns away to shout for a gurney, then turns back, glowering; she's not sure whether his glare is intended for her or for Meredith. "Irrational. Unacceptable risks."

" _Mark_ , is she okay?"

"You're two of a kind." He shakes his head. "I guess Derek has a type."

"Is she breathing?" Addison ignores the insults; she'll deal with them later. "Mark, can you just check her—"

"Back off, Addison." He sets Meredith's small body on the gurney, helping to fit oxygen over her face; monitoring her for a few moments before she sees, from the back, the way his shoulders move with visible relief. Still ignoring Addison, he mutters instructions to the orderly that she can't hear, then pats Meredith's shoulder with more gentleness than his previous words.

"Next time you're trying to kill yourself, Grey, just jump in the bay … it's easier." He looks to the orderlies. "Get her out of here."

Addison watches her go, heart thumping. Meredith is young, healthy, she'll be fine.

She has to be fine.

It was brave of her, risking her own skin to treat and comfort the terrified patient.

Was it stupid?

Maybe.

But it was brave, and nothing Mark Sloan could ever say would change that. In the meantime, she'll go back to the meeting room; there's closed-circuit screen there to watch the surgery without distracting or worrying her husband.

Mark interrupts, though, before she can finish her thought. "Right on time," he says, sounding pleased with himself as he steps back, holding open the door. "Gentlemen," he says politely.

Addison presses back against the wall as two figures in full PPE, hands raised, stalk toward them—it's Derek in front and Burke behind him, she realizes, and then their positions are switched because Derek has stopped in his tracks to stare at her, Burke barreling through the door without him.

She can see concern and anger both flash across her husband's masked face despite the shield, and guilt courses through her. He's not moving. He's just—looking at her.

"Derek."

Then she sees one of his hands rise; he's reaching to pull off his— _no_ , he can't, because they'll lose precious time.

"Derek!" She shouts loudly enough that she knows he'll hear her this time, trying to break through his reverie. "Derek, I'm okay. I'm fine. I didn't go in there."

He's still staring, his body posture making clear how torn he is. A year ago she can't imagine Derek wishing he could be with her instead of a patient.

"Derek—I wasn't anywhere near her, I promise."

"Shepherd, get the hell in there!" Mark shouts, gesturing toward the patient's room.

And then Addison feels her cheeks heat with shame—is Mark right about how selfish she is? To think everything is about her, when another mother might be dying, when a woman younger than she is exposed herself to a toxin without PPE just to keep a patient from suffering? While Addison did nothing?

"Derek, I'm fine," she repeats loudly, mindful of the PPE, she knows she can't touch him, but she both hands aloft in surrender before curling them protectively around her bump. She moves so she's the only thing in his line of vision. "We're fine, Derek. We're both fine. It's okay. Go."

"She's fine," Mark repeats loudly, rolling his eyes. He takes her arm before she can stop him, then directs his words to her husband: "I'll get her out of here, don't worry. Just go."

Derek nods, and then with one last look at her that makes her cheeks flush even harder— _if he can't focus on the patient now, it will be my fault—_ he's gone, the door swinging shut behind him.

And then she can't see him anymore because she's being towed past the door to the viewing room, past the oversized windows and the conference room where their colleagues are scrutinizing the real-time footage.

"This doesn't make you the good guy," Addison informs Mark as he escorts her down the hall.

"Yeah? Keep watching. Maybe I'll surprise you," he counters.

"Would you slow down?" she snaps. "I'm not exactly in marathon shape right now."

He's not walking particularly fast but with his hand around her arm she's tied to his pace; he reduces his speed immediately, an expression she can't quite identify crossing his face.

And then he looks away, elbowing open the door to one of the triage rooms. "Got another one for you, Johnson," he says, handing her off to a resident she's pretty sure isn't much older than her unborn son.

"Dr. Shepherd." The resident's eyes widen when he sees her, and his eyes travel right to her bump. "Are you all right?"

"I wasn't with the toxic patient," she says hastily. "I was just, uh, I was–toxic adjacent."

(Which is pretty much how she could describe her entire childhood, but that's another story.)

"Keep her away from the others," Mark instructs, and he and the resident exchange terse words about a setup that's new to her; it must concern the team who was initially affected by the toxin. "In case you're not aware," Mark adds, "Dr. Shepherd is … with child." He smirks in the general direction of her bump.

"Mark—"

But he just waits, arms folded, while the resident helps her onto the gurney.

"I'm fine," she tells the two men, and then the ceiling, "there's really no need."

"Check her vitals," Mark instructs in a monotone. "Keep her monitored, send me updates. We don't want the other Dr. Shepherd distracted in the OR."

" _Mark_ ," she hisses. "You know I wasn't exposed or anything even close to—"

"Chief!" Mark says in a booming voice, and they both turn, Addison propping up on her elbows as Richard strides through the open doors.

"What happened?"

"Everything's fine, Chief," Mark says smoothly. "As you can see, Addison is under close supervision. I brought her here myself."

"Thank you, Dr. Sloan." Richard says before leaning over her. "Addie … are you all right?"

"I'm fine, Richard." She sighs, resting a hand on her bump, feeling a little shaky in spite of herself. There's a paternal note of concern in his voice that's making her feel guilty for the worry she's caused. "I wasn't in any danger. I was never in danger. Right, Mark …?"

But Mark is standing at his full height, not seeming to hear her. "Chief … Shepherd and Burke are in the OR now," he reports. "Turner and McLaren are prepped for backup. We timed it precisely for maximal chance at success—the patient has tolerated all treatment so far."

"Except when she woke up on the table," Addison interjects, not caring how petty she sounds, not liking the smug expression on Mark's face.

"You handled this well, Sloan," Richard says, "very promising," and Addison rolls her eyes as the chief leans down to wish her well before striding off.

Mark smirks at her once the chief's gone, apparently not minding that the resident, and now a nurse, are sharing the room. "How does it feel to talk to a future chief?" he asks, sounding typically pleased with himself.

"I wouldn't know."

He frowns.

"You could have given Meredith a little credit," Addison points out. "Before you acted like you kept the patient alive all by yourself."

"Credit for what, almost killing herself?" Mark laughs, his tone unfriendly. "My guys were five minutes out. There was no need to play hero."

"Your guys?" she repeats, annoyed. "And Meredith wasn't _playing_." She hates the way her voice is shaking. "She was actually helping the patient, and risking her own health to do it. _Playing_ _hero_ … well, that's what you do, Mark."

"Excuse me?"

She turns to the side so she feels less like she's horizontal, and ticks the reasons off on her fingers. "Running the show here, pretending you actually care about the patient when it's really all about chief for you. It's really about beating Derek."

Mark's face darkens.

Just for a moment, and then he smirks again. "Hey, it's not just about beating Derek," he says, sounding amused. "It's also going to be very enjoyable to beat Preston Burke … and you, too, if you're still in the running." He pauses. "What's the maternity leave like for chief these days?"

Addison stares at him, then reaches for the oxygen mask. "Go away," she says, and pulls it over her nose and mouth, a conversation ender if she's ever seen one.

Thankfully.

She's fine but she's tired, admittedly; her vitals are monitored and someone brings down a doppler at her request. The adrenaline rush dissipated, she lets exhaustion take over and, once her son's heartbeat has been firmly established in her ears once more, lets herself drift off.

..

It feels like hours have passed by the time she wakes up, even if the clock on the wall suggests it's not quite that bad—she's embarrassed, but can admit she needed the rest.

"The procedure on the toxic patient—"

"Still going," the nurse at her side informs her. "And the team is fine," she adds, to Addison's relief.

But she can't quite relax, not wondering what's happening in the OR. It's only loyalty and leftover guilt that keeps her on the gurney.

So she stays where she is, letting the nurse keep her updated. Derek didn't look too happy with her when he saw her near the OR, and keeping her distance seems prudent.

 _Prudent._ Careful. Her stomach twists at the idea that Derek thinks she's taking chances with their son.

"Addison."

She looks up at the new, deep voice. "Preston," she says, surprised, then pushes her way half to sitting, Burke reaching her quickly to help when she realizes she's off balance.

"I'm sorry I startled you," he says in his silky voice. "Derek is fine. He's doing excellent work with the patient. As it happens, the cardiac involvement wasn't what we thought, so I've withdrawn to give Turner space to evaluate her."

"Derek's okay?" she asks. "Really?"

"Derek's okay."

Her heart is pounding anyway—where's that doppler. Preston busies himself getting her water, helping her sit back on the pillows. She's embarrassed. She's embarrassed to have him see her this way, but he handles it so calmly and smoothly she knows it could be a lot worse.

And then he squeezes her shoulder warmly when he's present to hear the reassuring sound of her son's heartbeat.

"He sounds like a very strong young man," Preston says with a smile.

"I hope so." Addison curves her hand around her bump. "I wouldn't expose him," she adds, feeling self-conscious again. "I didn't go in there."

"I know you didn't." Preston looks at her for a moment. "It must be difficult," he says. "Balancing."

He doesn't elaborate; he doesn't have to.

"I hope someday I'll be lucky enough to find out what it's like," Preston says quietly.

Ah.

"You and Cristina …" Addison pauses, a quick flash to one of the first procedures she undertook in Seattle, Yang's emergency salpingectomy.

"She's an intern. A very committed intern." He's looking past her, at something she can't see. "Driven," he says. "She's driven."

Addison opens her mouth to ask about wedding planning—because when in doubt, polite small talk—but Burke is paged before she has to come up with a question about flower arrangements.

"Rest if you can," Preston says, patting her shoulder before her leaves the room.

She appreciates his visit, his update, but –

 _Derek._

When he's out, when she sees him, then maybe she can exhale.

Until then?

She tries her best to relax for both of them, stroking the contours of her bump idly. _I'll never endanger you, baby. Not if I can help it._

..

When she finally hears that they're finished, that it was successful, she melts into the pillows with relief. It gives her the strength to stand up, all her monitoring having been perfect (if she does say so herself), and gives Derek enough time to get cleaned up and decon'd before she catches up to him.

"Derek!"

"Addison." He turns, in clean blue scrubs with damp hair; he's showered too and smells of soap when she hurries into his arms.

"I was worried," she whispers into his shoulder, the feel of his muscles comforting. "I was worried about you."

"I was fine, Addie." He pushes her back gently, holding her arms. "Are you sure we should be—" He looks down at her bump.

"You're decontaminated," she reminds him. "So yeah, I'm sure."

He holds on when she tries to move into his arms again, his eyes searching her face, lowering to her bump and then back to her face. "I was worried about you, too," he says evenly.

To her embarrassment, tears fill her eyes. "I didn't … I wouldn't endanger him."

"Addison."

"I stayed back, Derek. I did." She swipes at her eyes, willing herself to stop crying. They're in the hospital, for heaven's sake, and while she gave up a fair amount of dignity fainting on Meredith Grey in an exam room months ago and then blurting her pregnancy to most of the hospital staff at prom … there are some lines that shouldn't be crossed.

A tear falls on her scrub top, darkening the color. "Sorry." She pulls away from him to press her fists against both of her eyes. "I'm sorry."

She feels his hand close around her arm, gently, he's leading her somewhere—an exam room, she realizes, from the smell of the disinfectant and the sound of the paper table liner. A lifetime ago, before prom, they argued over a patient and he led her to a room like this one when nausea overtook her.

Deep breaths.

That's what she needs to do, as he reminds her, and it's what she wants to do.

"I'm sorry," she says again, miserably, as he watches her with impossibly soft eyes.

He just pulls her close again and she concentrates on forcing back her tears; she's shaky-legged with relief but that's no excuse. His arms are warm and strong around her, he's murmuring something in her ear but it makes her feel even guiltier, apologizing again into the shoulder of his scrub top for her loss of control.

They stand there for a long time, their positions not that far from this morning when the Chief accused them of slow-dancing.

Drained, she leans against him; she's suddenly very, very tired, as tired as she felt in the first trimester. All she can think about right now is how it will feel to crawl into bed, Doc curled up by her feet, listening to the rain drum the trailer's roof. Of course, she hasn't had dinner yet, which her breakfast-loving baby will—

 _Dinner._

She pulls back from her husband, and sees from his expression he's just remembered too.

..

"You don't keep Bizzy waiting," Addison reminds him as he backs the jeep out. She wasn't having any one of his perfectly reasonable objections to this plan—the reservation was hours ago, Bizzy's probably left, she's exhausted, she needs to sleep … she had an answer for all of it.

Now, sitting beside him in the passenger seat of his car, she does seem very much more like herself. But then that's Addison, able to put herself together in public with remarkable speed, very different from the small and soggy way she cried in his arms in the exam room, spilling over with apologies that set his teeth on edge for their root in her repressive upbringing.

She's much calmer now, at least.

"But you still want to—"

"I want to," Addison sighs.

"You think she's still there?"

"I don't know."

"It's a pretty good excuse, isn't it?" he offers. "A toxic patient?

"There are no excuses, as far as Bizzy's concerned. She still thinks it was rude of FDR to sit down during state dinners. And don't even get me started on—"

"Okay," he interrupts before she can wind herself up even further. "So it's not an excuse. It's a reason."

"Reason is just a pretty word for excuse," Addison recites; it's clear someone else told her that. "Two — no, almost three hours, Derek."

He flicks the windshield wipers.

"She can't have stayed for—three hours." Addison tips her head back against the seat. "No one would sit for three hours. She must have left."

"If she left, then we can just … have dinner without her."

Addison brightens at this, then slumps again with what he can tell out of his peripheral vision is guilt. Addison isn't exactly hard to read, not when you've spent as much time with her as he has. … and her Montgomery-related guilt spirals are obvious enough he's pretty sure Ray Charles could see them.

"You should go home," Addison says when they get to the restaurant. Preston's recommendation, it seems neutrally elegant from the outside, with dark awnings protecting the oversized windows from the persistent mist. They're close to the harbor; he can smell it in the air.

"Addison."

"Derek, look … Bizzy's car is here." She points out the same sleek looking town car they saw earlier at the airfield.

"It's waiting for her?"

"Of course." Addison tucks her hair behind her ears, drawing a deep breath. "We're not that far from the hospital, and I know you have work to do, so … ."

"Are you sure?"

She squeezes his hand. "You need to rest, Derek," she says, which doesn't answer the question, and it doesn't escape him.

"Call me when you're finished with dinner," he says, as indirectly as she did, and she nods, reaching for the door and then, when he tugs lightly on her hand, leaning back in for a quick kiss.

 _Good luck._

..

She's three hours late.

She's never been three _minutes_ late, not for Bizzy, and hear is thumping in her ears.

But there she is, looking perfectly unruffled—her table is excellent, as always. That's how it was: the Captain always got the best hotel rooms, Bizzy the best restaurant tables.

(A match made in heaven, as long as you don't need fidelity.)

There's a cocktail in front of her—of course there is—and it looks fresh enough that Addison can only imagine what number it is.

"I'm so sorry, Bizzy. There was a patient and I … I lost track of time. I can't believe you're still here," she says, realizing she's rambling and forcing herself to stop talking.

Bizzy glances up at her, then takes a calm sip of her drink. "Well. I assumed you wouldn't be so rude as to stand me up entirely, and here you are. You look like you could use a drink."

 _I really could._

"I'm, uh, I'm not really drinking these days. I'm … ."

Her voice trails off. Presumably, being pregnant never stopped Bizzy from a cocktail.

"Food," Addison announces instead, forcing a brighter tone. "I'm starving."

Which is uncouth and she doesn't care. She glances around the room, trying to get a waiter's attention. If Bizzy gets all … Bizzy about it, well, so be it. She's too busy trying to anticipate Bizzy's reaction even to take in anything about the restaurant—she's not sure she would recognize it again if she saw it. There are thick linen napkins, an embossed ridge around the edge of the cutlery, which she can feel when, nervously, she traces the edges.

And then stops; Bizzy hates it when she fidgets.

Her stomach growls—audibly? Oh, her mother will love that too.

"I really am sorry I kept you waiting so long," Addison says again ,hoping to distract her.

"Don't be," BIzzy says coolly. " A woman dining alone is perfectly comfortable here."

Addison's eyes widen.

"I may even have made a new friend." Bizzy's tone drifts into recognizable sarcasm as she inclines her head just the very slightest millimeter only someone raised by her could recognize, to indicate … the bar, where a man who looks like he might have had as much to drink as Bizzy is sending a gaze in her direction.

… somewhere between _interested_ and _lecherous_.

Addison winces. "Sorry," she says again.

"Don't worry, I told him I was happily married," Bizzy informs her airily.

"Are you?" Addison asks, before she can stop herself. "Happily married, I mean."

"I know what you meant." Bizzy sets down her drink.

"But you didn't answer me," Addison says daringly.

Bizzy studies her for a moment. "What is it that you want from me?"

Addison blinks, taken aback. _So many things._ Where would she start? But that was in the past, when Bizzy _giving_ her things might have mattered. Might have changed things. So what is it that she wants, now?

So much for small talk

"I want … to know things," she admits, feeling a little embarrassed.

The pile of pregnancy books, all so different, none perfect or even close, but all with questions suggesting the expectant mothers had some idea about their own gestation and birth.

 _How did you find out you were pregnant? Were you happy about it, at all?_

"How did you tell the Captain you were pregnant?" she asks, ignoring Bizzy's seeming instinctual grimace at the term.

 _Pregnancy isn't vulgar!_ Even before she carried her own child, pregnancy has always been one part miracle to two parts mystery; it's a mystery she's spent her career trying to solve: challenging its contours, saving risky ones and ensuring healthy ones. As a physician, she's found beauty in the most terrifying or tragic of pregnancies. As a mother, well. Pregnancy is anything but vulgar, and Bizzy's grimace is s far beyond anything in her to comprehend.

Silence.

And then finally:

"I don't remember," Bizzy says, and Addison can tell she's being truthful.

She's not really surprised. Disappointed? A little, but that's probably her own fault for getting her hopes up, as usual.

And so her next question dies on her lips. It was fantasy, anyway. As if Bizzy would have planned something, cared about the Captain's reaction, as if the pregnancy even made her happy at all.

"Were you happy about it?" she blurts.

 _Shut up, shut up,_ she chants internally, annoyed with herself. She should have let Derek come with her. He could have gracefully changed the subject or kicked her under the table or … faked an emergency and gotten them the hell out of there. Alone, she's just digging herself in deeper.

"About what?" Bizzy asks.

 _The collapse of the Soviet Union._

"About being pregnant," Addison explains tightly. Apparently she's just not going to stop herself at all.

Bizzy takes a sip of her drink.

"Were you happy to be _pregnant_ , Bizzy," Addison repeats, hearing her tone get a little louder. "Were you excited? Did you care?"

"Addison."

"Did you care about anything?" Her voice rises even as the air changes at the table, _warning_ , still she continues: "I mean, I know you didn't care about Archer and me, but you at least cared about the Captain, right? Did _he_ care? Why did you even bother to _have_ children if you didn't—"

"It's getting rather late," Bizzy says, interrupting her and then speaking calmly over her as if she didn't exist. "I'm afraid I'll have to be going. Thank you for your dinner recommendation," she adds. "The restaurant was quite … accommodating."

"Bizzy."

Her mother just eases her chair back—Bizzy's never squeaked a chair, not ever. Not even when she was pregnant, Addison would bet, but it's not like her mother would ever tell her that. Tears fill her eyes.

" _Bizzy._ Wait."

But her mother's gaze is distracted, looking toward the bar, before she glances once at her daughter. Impassively.

"Good night, Addison."

"Bizzy!"

The door closes behind her.

So that's it.

..

Once, when she was about five years old, eating lunch with her parents at the Captain's table at the country club, Bizzy was annoyed with her for something she can't remember now—probably something to do with her manners, maybe she was talking too much, fidgeting, that was usually the problem. What she remembers is Bizzy sending the Captain away with Archer and then telling Addison that nobody liked dining with rude little girls. _You'll have only yourself for company,_ she said, and then she left too.

Addison sat by herself in her sailor dress with her feet dangling in blue leather sandals, not really sure what to do: stay? Try to find her mother and apologize for being naughty? Even then she's pretty sure she had no idea what she did, but she learned early on to apologize heartily for her wrongdoings, whether real or perceived.

It was _weird_ , sitting alone like that, is what she remembered. But she thought she might get in worse trouble if she stood up. No one seemed to notice her sitting alone there, which was good, because attracting attention in a restaurant for your poor behavior … well, Addison learned very quickly and earlier than that what those consequences were.

So she stayed by herself at the table even when the straw-woven seat of the chair started digging into her thighs hard enough to hurt. Until finally she couldn't wait any longer and risked climbing down—the chair detaching from her sweat-dampened legs roughly enough that she had to bite back tears—and made her way toward the ladies' room, hoping she wouldn't be in too much trouble for leaving the table without being excused.

(By the time she caught up with her brother down at the boat slip with some of his big-kid friends, her nanny was there and her parents gone and no one ever brought up the incident again.)

..

Alone at a different table more than thirty years later, Addison swipes at her eyes.

 _Damn it._

Hormones. That's all it is. Hormones, and she can cry in public now if she wants to. She's not five years old anymore, and this isn't Connecticut. Seattle is hers.

Hers, and Derek's, and their son's … and not Bizzy's.

Not Bizzy's at all.

Bizzy made it three hours before she got there, and what … fifteen minutes since?

 _Maybe I didn't have to ask if you were excited to be a mother. You made it pretty clear, didn't you? You've never wanted it. You've never cared._

"I'll just take the check, please." She dabs at her eyes with her napkin, hoping she looks more subtle than she feels.

"It's already taken care of," the waiter says, glancing toward Bizzy's empty chair. Of course she figured out some way to do that, too.

Smooth.

Bizzy's always been like that. Smooth as silk. Unruffled. Nothing bothers her. Maybe life is easier that way; Addison's tried it, sometimes more successfully than others, but she'd never be able to pull it off long term.

She's just – stuck here now, alone.

But the waiter's gaze has drifted over to the bar, and Addison follows it to a pair of very familiar shoulders.

He never left, not even to the car: he's at the bar waiting for her.

"Derek."

"Addison." He smiles at her, though he looks a little sad.

"Bizzy left," she says simply.

"I know."

"And you're … here."

"And I'm here."

"You were here the whole time?"

"I figured you might want a ride back."

She kisses him deeply in response, not caring about the fact that they're in public, or that Bizzy's lecherous new friend is watching a little too closely.

"Thank you," she says once she's pulled back—a little breathless, and Derek is a little flushed.

"Anytime." He pauses. "And in other good news …"

Addison lifts an eyebrow.

"She's going to make it," he says. No need to identify the patient, not tonight.

Relief courses through her. "And Meredith?"

"No lasting damage for any of the team," he says. "They're all off oxygen now."

Thank god.

At his expression she explains what the intern did.

"Mark was angry," she says.

"Of course he was." Derek grimaces. "He was probably afraid it would jeopardize his chances at chief."

"You don't think it was stupid?"

"What—going in to sedate the patient?"

"Without PPE."

"It was risky," he says after a moment, "but if she saw the patient wake up …" He pauses. "Actually, it reminds me of something you would do."

 _I came a little closer than I should have._

"Yeah? You think I'm risky?"

"I think you're brave," he says simply, which makes her swallow hard. "And I think seeing her wake up like that would be … ." He pauses again. "We've talked about the patient and the team, but you haven't told me how you're doing," he says mildly.

"Oh." She slides in next to him, his palm light on her back as she settles on the stool.

"How are you doing?"

"Well." She leans against him and he wraps an arm around her shoulder. "Bizzy's still in Seattle, and I can't drink a bottle of wine, which is what I'd really like to do … oh, and she basically stormed out, so I'm pretty sure she likes me even less than usual."

"That good, huh?" She feels the press of his lips against her hair.

It doesn't hurt anymore. Not the way it did before, the hard knot in her stomach when Bizzy faced her across the dinner table in the restaurant and then left her there.

Right now … she's pretty sure she's going to make it too. That they both are.

"Hungry?" he asks.

She thinks about the abandoned bread at the abandoned table, the appetizers they never ordered.

"Starved," she admits.

He rustles up menus and they eat side by side at the bar for all the world like the Addison and Derek who used to grab food wherever was open when they got off shift in Manhattan. For thirty minutes they don't talk about Bizzy at all and it is, without question, the best half hour of her day.

A light rain falls on them when they make their way to the jeep; Derek teases her just enough about her backseat driving to make everything feel normal.

He drives them both back to the trailer without asking her, and she's grateful.

She lingers on the gravel anyway, once he's parked, not even sure why; Derek seems to understand. He lets Doc out, joins her on the porch with a beer for him and a Perrier for her. The weather is just starting to cool and she sinks into one of the chairs, enjoying the fresh air.

They sit for long moments drinking and tossing a very gentle stick for Doc. It's really more like _handing_ him the stick, but the dog is thrilled and Addison loves watching how boyish Derek is with Doc. There's something timeless about their interactions that makes her anticipate even more what it will be like to have a son of their own. A little boy who, if all goes well, will be able to have his own relationship with Doc.

" … and he said his last craniotomy at Methodist was on a Thursday afternoon so he needed to wait until Thursday here because of some—superstition, so we had to get one of the fellows …"

Between stick throwing Derek tells her a few idle stories of his day and she appreciates the way he knows she doesn't want to talk about Bizzy … but she doesn't want silence, either.

She's had enough silence.

"He ended up color coding residents by day of the week." Derek smiles at her. "It was about as efficient as it sounds, and when Richard gets wind of it … well."

Doc returns from the other side of the porch, panting happily, and Addison takes her turn very carefully throwing … or rather placing … the stick for Doc to chase.

Glancing at her husband, she feels a stirring inside her that has nothing to do with their very active, breakfast-loving baby and everything to do with the way Derek stuck around at the restaurant without even telling her, in case she needed him, the way he drove her home—because home is here—and didn't press her on what happened with her mother because he knew she needed a breather first so the hurt wouldn't be so raw. The way he understood how hard it was for her to abandon the toxic patient, even though she needed to protect their baby.

"Addie?"

She smiles at him. "Tell me more about the color coding," she says.

..

He waits until she asks about the patient, not wanting to start in on any stressful topics until she's ready. When she glances at him with a slight nod, he gestures at his blackberry.

"She's improving. Her sats are up since we've been home; I had them keep me updated."

He says _home_ without thinking about it; Addison doesn't question it, just exhales a long breath.

"I was afraid," she admits. "I was afraid for her."

"I know."

"I couldn't stop thinking about—she had children."

Derek nods.

"Maybe it was … personalizing," she says, something in her voice that makes it sound like she means _selfish_.

Derek considers this. "I was thinking about the husband," he admits. "I saw him, earlier. He looked … resigned." His gaze shifts out toward the lake. He has, thankfully, little experience in the area. Except for those terrifying moments—in his memory, they are somehow both very fast and very slow—in the scrub room when Addison was fighting for breath. Different, of course, because as far as he knows the patient's husband has no blame for his wife's cancer, no matter what he might think. But still.

"I don't think it's selfish," he says, knowing he guessed right by the way her gaze flickers over to him. He pauses. "Remember Costello's class, second year?"

"Annals of Patient Care," she says immediately, and then presses her lips together—presumably remembering, just as he is, how Mark used to refer to that particular course.

Derek nods. "He said there's a line between personalizing, and—"

"—empathizing." She finishes the sentence for him. "And the trick is to stay on the right side of it." Sighing a little, she recrosses her legs. "Sounds so easy, doesn't it?"

"It probably was easy for Costello. He saw maybe a dozen patients a year."

Addison doesn't respond, but she's smiling again. Derek smiles too, knowing it's another joint memory flickering across the projection screen of their shared past: Costello pacing the front of the lecture hall in his typical way, running a thick hand through his white Einstein-style hair, and barking at them: _it's quality, not quantity!_ Their professor wore thick Irish wool sweaters with suede elbow patches and called them all by their last names: the men were _mister_ and the women were either _miss_ or, if he deemed them too outspoken for his liking, _mizz_ pronounced with an exaggerated air of faux feminist respect. Addison, of course, fell into the latter category.

It would hardly be acceptable now, thank goodness. By the time their son is ready for medical school … and just the thought of that makes him smile again. It's another joint projector screen, a new one: for the future. Not long ago he thought the film ended with their past, but once they were finally in the present, he can see the future opening up in enough newsreels that he loses the tail of the metaphor.

"You were empathizing with the patient," he says, bringing the conversation back. "You're a good doctor. That's what good doctors do."

She rests a hand on her bump, looking pensive.

"And good mothers," he adds.

Her gaze flickers to him again. "You were worried … ."

"Not about that." His throat feels a little thick; he clears it. "Never about that."

She takes his hand. "He's awake," she says softly, and they both sit in silence feeling their son's movements.

It's overwhelming.

Still.

Every time.

"Derek?"

He leans in to kiss her; a soft sound of surprise escapes her lips as he captures them, which along with their classroom reminiscing makes him feel like a medical student again.

Addison laughs a little as they separate, then leans into him again. "Want to go make out in the stacks?" she asks—apparently the flashback hasn't been lost on her—and then it's his turn to laugh.

"Isn't that the benefit of growing up? No more hiding in the stacks?" He gestures to his land—no, their land. "We have all this wide open space to …"

" … make out," she finishes for him.

"We can start with that, sure."

Her teeth graze her lower lip, where his lips were just moments ago, and he swallows hard.

"You know, Derek … just because you put the ring back on, and just because I'm carrying your baby, you can't assume you're going to get lucky."

"I don't have to assume." He leans back in his chair, enjoying the feel of the cooler night air, then carefully, with her nod of approval, rests a hand on her bump to feel the life growing inside her. "I already got lucky," he says quietly.

When he looks up her eyes are glistening. "Oh, you are _good_ ," she says, laughing a little.

"Well." He glances around. "No stacks here, but we do have a trailer. What do you say?"

"I say … I like your chances." She grins at him, leaning in for a kiss and then pulling back when her phone start ringing.

"Throw it in the lake," Derek suggests, only half joking; the ringing has awakened Doc, who's busy inserting his cold nose between his two favorite people. It's adorable, but it's not exactly the mood he was going for.

"I'm not going to answer it." Addison ruffles Doc's fur with one hand, the other finding his shirt collar to pull him close.

"Good."

"Except …"

"It might be a patient," Derek offers.

"It might—you know what?" Addison sits up like she's been struck with an idea. "Screw it."

"Pardon me?"

"Screw it," she repeats. "Screw the phone and the—suspense. This is _my_ story, and I'm not going to be afraid of the phone just because of a few … issues."

"The masseuse at the Archfield," he prompts helpfully.

"And my mother."

"And your mother."

She glances at the phone. "It's a Seattle exchange."

"Want me to answer it?"

"Because that went so well the last time." She makes a face at him. "Never mind, just—" she flips the phone open with an eyeroll. "Addison Shepherd—oh." _Bizzy_ , she mouths to Derek, looking less than thrilled. "I'm, uh, I'm sorry it took me so long to answer," she recites woodenly, then pauses, clearing her throat. "I'm not mumbling. … No, I don't have a _tone_ —it's late, that's all."

Derek sighs, leaning back in his chair. It's been a while since he heard half of a phone conversation with Bizzy.

"Yes, I know I kept you waiting for hours tonight. I already said I was sorry for—that wasn't a tone either. … No, I don't think we—well, then why—" She's silent for a few beats. "I'm not sure that's a good idea. … Because I'm not. … Because I'm _not._ Would you just—" She's silent again. "Fine. I'll see you then."

She snaps the phone shut. "Don't start," she warns him before he can speak.

"What did I do?"

"Nothing." She slumps against the back of the seat. "You didn't do anything. And … I'm having breakfast with Bizzy tomorrow."

His eyes widen. "Addison—"

"I already know it's a bad idea. But she—"

"Apologized?"

Addison laughs mirthlessly. "Apologize, Bizzy? Hardly. But she did say—well, she's not in town very long, and I suppose I do want to talk to her … ." Her voice trails off. "Will you come? To breakfast?"

"Of course I'll come." He pauses. "Did Bizzy invite me?"

"She specifically did _not_ invite you," Addison says, recrossing her legs, "but I did. Seattle is our turf, Derek. Bizzy's not in charge of the guest lists here."

She pauses, looking a little embarrassed, and he nods encouragingly.

"Our turf," she repeats, sounding almost shy. "Yours and mine and I'll talk to Bizzy but I'm not going to let her push me around."

"Good." He smiles at her, despite having been witness to many such declarations over the years, all of which eventually folded under Bizzy's cool glare. "So." He reaches for her hand. "No more phone calls … and no stacks … but yes trailer. Yes?"

"Yes," she says, sounding distracted, "in a minute." She's opening the phone, starting to dial a number.

"Addie?"

She glances at him. "Bizzy's tough, Derek. I need reinforcements. I want Seattle back."

"Reinforcements?" He swallows.

"I want Seattle," she repeats. "I want Seattle, and I want my mother to go back to Connecticut."

She's dialing fast, and then giving him a rueful look as she speaks into the phone. "Yes, I'll hold. Addison Shepherd. Yes, Shepherd, with an S, and yes he gave me this number. Oh, I'm sure he's _very_ busy, but certainly you can ask him to—Archie!"

Derek winces.

"… Yes, she's here. … Oh, it's going _great_ , I haven't had a dinner with her like that since the city ballet benefit in '86, and that's the winter I got the perm. … Stop laughing, Archer, this is serious!"

She's silent for a moment, then she's talking into the phone again. "I know that, but—look, you need to get her out of here. … Yes, here. … Yes, as in Portland. I mean Seattle! I don't know, Archie, she certainly listens to you more than she listens to me. She told you she was coming here, didn't she?"

He watches her worrying her lower lip between her teeth as, presumably, Archer speaks on the other end of the phone. "Yes, I know you're busy. And I _am_ grateful you warned me she was coming, but that's not—"

She draws a deep breath, glancing at Derek before turning back to the phone.

"Look, Archer, this is my last request. Call her. Tell her there's a gin shortage on the east coast. Do whatever you have to do, just get her out of here by dinnertime tomorrow or I tell Bizzy who was actually response for what happened at the Cabots' country house when Tripp —"

Another pause, and a decisive nod.

"Good. I thought so."

She clicks the phone shut, glancing at Derek, looking somewhere between proud and worried.

"He'll … be here tomorrow."

Derek's eyes widen.

"At least he can, um, convince Bizzy to leave with him?"

Her voice rises on the end, and he knows that wasn't her intent when she called her brother. Taking back the story, that was what she was supposed to be doing.

Except now Archer is coming to Seattle.

Bizzy is already here.

It's Seattle, the place where he never expected to see even one Montgomery, much less multiples.

But Addison is watching him closely, still fingering her closed phone. He knows how hard it is for her to take a stand where her family is concerned. And maybe there's more than one way to take control of the narrative.

"Your story, huh?" he asks finally.

She nods.

"And Archer's coming here."

"Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," he repeats. "Okay, then. So … what happens in tonight's chapter?"

"Tonight?" A slow smile starts lighting her face; she stands up and holds out her hand. "tonight … the trailer happens," she says, gesturing toward the warm light emanating from inside. "And maybe both of us will get lucky."

* * *

 _To be continued. Next time: breakfast with Bizzy (who's about to get a bit more airtime). I would love to hear your thoughts on this chapter! I have been planning Meredith swapping out with Addison for the toxic patient for a while. It just made sense to me; in a way, Addison running into the patient's room in 3.14 was a complement to Meredith sticking her hand in the grenade patient's chest in ... the bomb episode. They both act on instinct and sometimes without thinking fully through potential ramifications to themselves because the patient is first and foremost. I love that about both of them. But. Things are different here because Addison is 20 weeks pregnant and she's not going to risk the baby the way she would have risked herself. That said, I still loved getting a chance to rewrite the frustrating scene from the episode sauntering past a collapsing Addison without even checking to see if she was alive (I have a Flip the Script on this scene, "She's Waking Up," that was my first attempt at making it less infuriating, if you want to check that out and haven't already)._

 _Thank you for being such wonderful readers! Bizzy's visit is tough so far, and it's still going, but don't give up hope. Things in this universe have been tough before, and there's generally light at the end of the tunnel. See you next Sunday (I'll do my very best)! Writing is great and necessary distraction when I can swing it, and I hope reading does the same for you. I look forward to hearing your thoughts if you have time to review-I appreciate them all. xoxo_


	36. Cadence (with a K)

**A/N: First, thank you so much for the really generous comments on the Toxic two-parter. This week's update is, in a word, enormous. It's long, but I wanted to tell this part of the story in one chapter. I hope you will agree once you read it. Let's just say the Montgomerys are a complicated family, and they need a fair amount of word count. I love writing this story in part because there's room for lighter parts and heavier parts, which to me is very Addek (and very pregnancy, too).**

 **I hope everyone is staying safe and sane, and I hope you enjoy this chapter!**

* * *

 _ **Cadence (with a K)**_

 _Gestational Age: Twenty Weeks, One Day  
Baby is the Size of: a canteloupe (she should never have checked that other book, because a cantaloupe is far too corpulent for its maternal grandmother)  
Said Maternal Grandmother: is in Seattle  
Baby's Maternal Uncle: is arriving tonight  
Baby's Father: is being patient and downright dreamy but how long can any of that last around baby's extended maternal side?  
Baby's Mother: is surviving on merciful second-tri afterglow and half-glasses of wine, but who's counting?  
.._

"Are you really sure I look okay?"

"You look more than okay, Addie. You look beautiful."

But the words pass through her without any seeming impact.

(He's unfortunately not surprised, having seen his wife through more visits with her mother over the years than he would have preferred.)

They're close—very close—to their breakfast date with Bizzy.

They're basically there, in fact, but Addison has turned to him from the passenger seat, her shoulders tense, one hand on the door she doesn't seem quite ready to open.

"I don't know about this dress," she says hesitantly.

"It's a great dress." Derek looks at her. "And I don't have any spare dresses in the jeep, so I think even if it were a less than great dress, you're still better off wearing it than going to breakfast in your underwear."

Her mouth twitches, almost like a smile.

"… since we're having breakfast with Bizzy," he continues, "to be very clear, I'm fine with underwear breakfasts when it's just the two of us."

"Oh, you are?"

"I definitely am."

"Even if the breakfast is in a restaurant?"

"… not if the breakfast is in a restaurant." He leans in for a quick kiss. "But that's what the trailer is for."

And it was, this morning, and last night too, and so far he can definitely say the second trimester has been _very_ nice to the Shepherds.

Addison reaches for the door and Derek, taking her cue, reaches for his—only for her to stop again. "What about my hair?"

"What about it?"

"I don't know." She's pulled down the mirror and is moving some strands around—her hair is loose and soft around her face today, and she looks lovely (and if she didn't, he would still know better after nearly twelve years than to say anything about it). "It's hot out … it might frizz on the way in …"

Derek glances up at the entrance to the Archfield's lobby directly in front of their car, and then at the uniformed valet standing a respectful five or so feet from the car, looking rather confused.

"It's a short walk."

"But it's a humid city." Addison pulls out another strand. "A very humid city."

 _And Bizzy said you shouldn't wear your hair pulled back._

He doesn't say it out loud, but he doesn't have to.

"It's fine." She braces her hand on the door again and, like a choreographed dance, both Derek inside the jeep and the valet outside it move slightly toward it to— "But it's hot out," she adds. "So I don't know."

"Addie," he starts carefully.

"I know I'm being ridiculous."

"I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to. Your face says it." She sighs, leaning back in her seat for a minute. "Can we just go?"

"Absolutely." He rests a hand on her leg. "We'll tell Bizzy we had an emergency at the hospital."

"I can't stand her up two days in a row."

"You showed up last night," he reminds her.

"Three hours late. And then I made her storm off."

"She might have stormed off," Derek corrects her gently. "But you didn't make her do anything."

"Oh, stop being so reasonable," she says grumpily.

"I thought you liked when I was reasonable." He reaches up to brush a strand of non-frizzy hair away from her face. "We can leave, Addie."

"No. Let's just go have breakfast." An almost impish smile crosses her face. "Your son is hungry," she says. "I think he still remembers the incredible Belgian waffles he had here last time."

With that, she finally pushes open the door, late summer heat gusting into the jeep along with the humid wind.

Before she can change her mind again, he ushers her ahead of him, a hand resting on her back, figuring at the very least they could use some air conditioning.

"Did you know she was staying at the Archfield?" he murmurs as they approach the glass door.

"Not until she called last night."

"Savvy, Nancy and the girls, my mom … " Derek ticks the previous Shepherd-affiliated guests off on his fingers.

"And us," Addison says almost shyly, and he remembers the night he booked them into the hotel so that his wife could luxuriate in a much needed hot bath.

There's a moment where he remembers the ups and downs of that night—Addison confessing another piece of her relationship with Mark, but not the whole story, and knowing now it was a lie briefly curdles his stomach.

But just briefly.

It's different now, _they're_ different now, and he takes her hand for a quick squeeze. "Think they'll give you a finders' fee?"

"They might have before Bizzy came to town," Addison says grimly. "But once she complains about half the staff … "

Right.

..

There's no reason to be anxious.

Sure, having a meal with Bizzy is about as relaxing as swimming on the Vineyard was the summer _Jaws_ came out, but she's not a kid anymore. She's 39 … and then some. She's twenty weeks (and one day) pregnant, and she's not alone.

This reconciliation with her husband hasn't been easy.

It hasn't been fast.

But it has been worth it.

So she squares her shoulders. There's nothing Bizzy can throw at them now. In fact—

"Derek, wait." She rests a hand on his arm, he nods, and when she returns from the ladies' lounge a few minutes later with her hair pulled straight back, tightly, and clipped to her head?

She can tell from his expression that he understands exactly why.

"Ready?" he asks, offering his arm. She sees his gaze slide down her body—she really does like this dress, in a deep green with an all-over print of ivory leaves. The overall effect is summery, and the fabric clings to the lines of her new figure in a way that's both flattering and exciting.

(In different ways for each spouse, of course: exciting to her to see her growing bump, to look so _pregnant_ , and while those things are exciting to Derek too, she's fairly certain he's reserving a decent amount of that excitement for the way she's filling out the top of the dress.)

"Ready," she says.

And it's true.

She's made it through a three-hours-late dinner with her mother, Bizzy Who Is Never Late.

She's taken control of the story, _her_ story, and ordered her brother to come to Seattle (which was very satisfying), and he's promised to fly in tonight and work his magic to get Bizzy out.

Calm, cool, collected.

What else can Bizzy do now to throw her?

So she walks in on Derek's arm with her head held high to find Bizzy at a round table in what is clearly the best spot in the high-ceilinged dining room, with a view of verdant spruce trees all the way out to the bay.

"Addison," Bizzy says once they've greeted each other, and Derek has done all the things she taught him to do to get Bizzy to accept his previously a little rough-around-the-edges manners. "Do you plan to wear that dress to work?"

She blinks.

She considers repeating Derek's joke from the keep, except she knows Bizzy won't get it.

"What's wrong with this dress?"

"Nothing, dear. It's very flattering," Bizzy says, only she manages to say the word like it's not a compliment, "but it exposes quite a bit for this time of day."

Addison looks down at the dress. Okay, so, to be blunt: her new boobs do look a little different in the dress. (Fabulous, but different.)

But they're fully covered and the dress is similar to several others she has for her non-maternity figure. They suit her. They're perfectly professional. And they're classics: she still has the one she bought in the Seventh on her Paris honeymoon, and it still looks just as good.

(Or it did before the baby, but that's not the point.)

"I like this dress," she says, hating the way her voice sounds so uncertain.

"It's a great dress," Derek interjects in a supportive tone.

Bizzy glances at him, looking amused. "I'm sure you think so, dear," she says to Derek, then turns back to Addison before he can respond. "One needs to be conscious of these things in pregnancy, Addison. A man isn't going to be able to advise you on the topic."

She gives Derek an almost pitying look.

Addison's cheeks flush.

But then Bizzy said _in pregnancy_. Does she remember her own maternity clothes? She takes a chance.

"Bizzy," she says before she loses nerve, "when you were pregnant—"

But the uniformed waiter is approaching with coffee, and Bizzy's expression—cool and collected, but Addison knows that face—makes clear she's not going to answer.

But that's okay.

Addison can deal with that, it's nothing unexpected.

"Now." Bizzy looks at her once they've ordered. "Your father has had a minor issue with his heart. He's perfectly fine, and if you'd like to send him something, please don't send flowers, because it already smells atrocious in his wing."

"What?" Addison stares.

 _Nothing Unexpected, starring Bizzy and Addison Montgomery (Shepherd): a play with a twist!_

"Too many flowers are overpowering," Bizzy continues matter-of-factly. "The Captain is likely to develop hay fever at this rate."

"Not the flowers," Addison says tightly, "the Captain. What happened to him? Why didn't you tell me?"

"I just told you."

"What. Happened. To his heart," Addison tries again, as Derek covers her hand with his on the table. The warmth of it grounds her.

"Some sort of … obstruction," Bizzy says airily, "with an artery of some sort. His doctors had a needlessly dramatic term for it."

"… widowmaker. He had a widowmaker?"

At her mother's confirmatory expression, Addison exchanges a glance with Derek. "The term might be dramatic, Bizzy, but not needlessly so."

Bizzy makes a gesture suggesting she disagrees. "He had a very minor procedure and was fine."

Addison blinks, trying to process this. "The Captain … had heart surgery … and you didn't call me?"

"There was no reason to bother you, Addison. What could you have done?"

"Spoken with the doctors, for one thing," she suggests shakily. Derek squeezes her hand.

"Your brother spoke with them," Bizzy says, "and seemed satisfied with his care. The procedure was done at Lexington Hill, of course, and they were very solicitous."

(Naturally, since three generations of Montgomerys have been on the board.)

But—wait.

"Archer knew about this?" She hears her voice rise. "He didn't tell me either."

"That's between the two of you."

 _And he's flying in tonight too, Bizzy, so there's something you don't know._

She doesn't say it aloud, of course.

Bizzy just studies her face for a moment. "Addison. You moved across the country without so much as a word. Surely you can't expect us to track you down to fill you in on every minor happenstance in your absence."

"… I told Susan I was going," Addison says in a small voice, then sits up a little taller. "And the Captain having surgery is hardly a _minor happenstance_."

"Neither is a pregnancy," Bizzy says coolly, "especially at your age, dear, but I don't recall receiving a personal update from you on that topic."

 _Touché._

She'll have to give Bizzy this one.

"You still could have called," she says, though, instead of letting it go.

"You never sent an address."

 _I lived in a hotel. And then a trailer. And then a hotel. And now a trailer again. So …_

"I've had the mail forwarded from the house in New York, Bizzy," Addison says, "so I'm not sure I get your point. It's not like you tried to send me a postcard about the Captain's heart."

"There's no need for that tone, Addison." Bizzy takes a moment to adjust her necklace, which is sitting _just so_ on her collarbones.

(She'll give her mother this: she's excellent at wearing jewelry. And scarves. But that's neither here nor there.)

"I don't have a tone. I have _questions._ I have questions about my father practically dying—"

"—oh, don't be dramatic—"

"—and my mother not bothering to tell me—"

"—did you hear what I said?"

"I'm not being dramatic!" Addison realizes too late she's raised her voice; Derek rests a hand on her arm and Bizzy looks daggers at her that she knows to a passerby would look like perfectly normal and even polite eyes.

"Addison, I'm not going to discuss this with you if you're going to behave this way." Bizzy's tone is perfectly calm. "Your father is fine."

"Who's with him?" Addison asks, suddenly realizing the import of her mother's trip.

"Susan is running the house while I'm away," Bizzy says simply. "Your father has a very … dedicated team of private nurses and a physician checking on him."

She says _dedicated_ in the same tone she used to use to say that one of Addison's nannies, Taffy (yes, Taffy), was _energetic._

Then again, directly post heart attack, the Captain won't be strong enough to do what Addison unfortunately walked in on him doing in the library with Taffy when she was ten.

Eleven?

No, ten. Eleven was her French tutor, Mignonette, and it was the gazebo.

… but that's neither here nor there.

"So the Captain's prognosis is good," Derek is saying, in a perfectly reasonable tone, and she appreciates him carrying the conversation. He's always been good at this, at making seamless transitions while Addison tries to process her mother's biting comments. "That's great news."

"Yes, well. I'll pass your regards to him, of course."

Addison has a flash of memory to when Nancy's father-in-law had a heart attack. It wasn't a widowmaker—literally or figuratively—but he did need surgery. And Nancy spent hours on the phone with her mother-in-law, talking her through the medical aspects, organizing her children to draw pictures and write cards; John drove upstate to do things like clear the snow from the lawn and organize a home health visitor. Nancy was in tears when she told Addison the news.

No one passed any _regards._

… but then, no one ever accused the Shepherds of being WASPs.

"Does he know you're here?" Addison asks quietly.

"Yes." Bizzy pauses for a moment. "He sends his regards."

 _Of course he does._

"Does he know that I'm—"

She stops talking, somehow unable to say _pregnant_.

"Yes," Bizzy says again, "not that you passed on the news."

"I _was_ going to." Addison reaches for her fork, then puts her hand back in her lap. The Belgian waffle the baby was craving tastes dusty and overly sweet. "It's not my fault Mo—Derek's mom beat me to it."

"I'm sorry about that, Bizzy," Derek says, in that earnest voice Addison knows he can put on at will, and she appreciates it. "And so is my mother. She shouldn't have assumed. She was just so excited."

"About another grandchild," Bizzy says drily. "You'd think she'd be used to it by now."

"Seriously?" Addison stares at her mother, hackles rising. She can't help feeling protective of Carolyn. "What does that—"

"She's excited every time," Derek says smoothly, interrupting her, and she feels the warm pressure of his hand on her knee under the table. Just under her skirt, and skin on skin is incredibly soothing.

She draws a deep breath.

"I was going to tell you," Addison says in a small voice. "I wasn't sure how you were going to react."

"You mean whether I was going to be excited?"

Bizzy's tone is light, almost like she's joking.

Addison exchanges a nervous glance with Derek. "We're excited," she says tentatively. "We're very excited."

"How nice." Bizzy's tone is matter-of-fact. "It's good news, of course," she adds, without discernible inflection. "Your father is pleased that you'll be carrying on some of the older names, since your brother has been so reluctant to settle down."

"The older names?" Addison repeats faintly.

"Family names," Bizzy says, her tone indicating that Addison is quite stupid for not catching on. "For your son," she adds.

"No, I know, but we haven't—"

"There are a number of Montgomerys in the Revolutionary rolls," Bizzy continues as if Addison hasn't interrupted. "There's Charles Lee—your father is named for him, of course. George Washington selected him personally as second-in-command."

Lee wasn't exactly a war hero, but luckily the Revolutionary War isn't exactly big in popular culture. It's not like anyone is going to know about—

"He perhaps could have handled the Battle of Monmouth better," Bizzy says delicately. "But Washington was grateful for his service."

"He was shot by Alexander Hamilton," Addison murmurs to Derek, "but who's counting?"

"It was John Laurens, dear," Bizzy corrects her, "Hamilton was just his second, and speaking of lineage one wouldn't want to celebrate … ."

She's quiet for a moment.

"Well. Hamilton has his own descendants, and I'm sure the … uncertainties of his parentage have been forgotten," Bizzy continues. "What matters is the Montgomery line, as you know, and their role in the Revolution. There's Benedict, for example."

Derek coughs, patting his mouth with a napkin while Addison fights a smile.

"—not that one. Benedict _Greene_ ," Bizzy clarifies. "Or perhaps Richard Montgomery."

"Didn't he fight for the British?" Addison glances at Derek.

"He switched sides eventually." Bizzy frowns, then turns to Derek. "My children are both named for the Bradford Forbes lineage and it's only fair to the Captain that his family is reflected this time."

 _Only fair._

Addison rubs the bridge of her nose, where a headache is growing. Somehow, they've moved from the Captain's secret heart attack to what she and Derek are supposed to name their son?

"Bizzy," she says carefully, "we haven't really considered names yet."

"I'm sure you'll give it due consideration." Bizzy glances at her. "You know where your name originates," she prompts.

"I'm named for Addison Bradford," she recites dutifully. "He was a general who spearheaded a major victory in Camden in 1780," she adds for Derek's sake, though he's heard this before, "although …"

She glances at her mother.

"… it was a victory for the British," Bizzy admits, "and Addison Bradford never switched sides, either. But no one is perfect."

Addison looks at Derek.

Derek looks back at Addison.

She has a sudden need to laugh.

Or cry.

Or—

"Really, I think it's admirable," Bizzy says. "It shows commitment."

Okay, fine, more like laugh.

Which isn't so bad.

From Derek's expression, and the way he squeezes her leg again—gently, supportively—he agrees.

"The Captain's really all right?" she asks quietly.

"He's really all right." Bizzy looks down for a moment, then back up again. "As for the rest of the day," she says, businesslike, as if they've asked to review her schedule, "I'd like to see where you work."

"Where I –where I work?"

"The hospital," Bizzy prompts.

"Oh, no." Addison glances at Derek, then at her mother, and shakes her head so vigorously her _severe_ hairstyle nearly falls down around her oh-so-showing face. "No, no, no. Absolutely not. Under no circumstances. I'm sorry, Bizzy," she says firmly, "but the answer is no."

..

"That was good, right?" Addison asks proudly as she and her husband stand in the hospital lobby, the command-performance breakfast with her mother mercifully behind them. "You saw what I did," she prompts.

"I did see."

"I stood up to Bizzy."

"I noticed."

"She wanted to come to work with us," Addison recites, "but I said _no_ , I said _absolutely not_ , and I stuck to my guns."

"You certainly did."

"We don't need any more interference from her."

"No, we don't." Derek clears his throat. "So, uh, just to confirm, she …"

"… will be arriving at the hospital at two o'clock, yes." Addison grimaces. "But she did agree to give us some lead time to warn Richard instead of coming right away, and … "

Her voice trails off.

"Baby steps?" she suggests, looking hopeful. Between the phrasing and the way her posture accentuates her bump, he has no choice but to smile.

"Baby steps," he repeats, resting his palm against the curve of her belly; after a moment, he feels movement. "Speaking of which … baby seems to be stepping right now."

"He heard your voice." Addison covers his hand with hers.

"I wish I didn't hear your voice," says another, far less welcome voice, "because I'm trying to keep my breakfast down."

They both look up, Addison's cheeks flushing, Derek feeling his hackles rise.

"What do you want, Mark?"

"Hey, I'm just saying hello to my colleagues." He spreads his hands innocently. " _I_ am collegial. Haven't you read my Chief's Report?"

Addison and Derek exchange a glance.

"What Chief's Report?"

"The one Richard has to write about each one of us to present to the board." Mark cocks his head, while both Shepherds wince to hear Mark Sloan referring so familiarly to the Chief when he's been here such a short time. "You're really not paying much attention to the competition, Derek," he adds.

"Maybe Derek doesn't think he has any actual competition," Addison cuts in, her voice cool, "and maybe he's right."

"Ouch." Mark rubs his jaw thoughtfully. "But doesn't that mean you're not competition for him either, Addison?" He raises his eyebrows. "I get it. You're gonna be too busy picking out baby clothes and playing peekaboo to run a hospital, huh?"

" _Mark._ " Derek glares at him. "Go bother someone else."

"… persistent," Mark says thoughtfully.

"Excuse me?"

"The Chief's Report." Mark puffs up his chest a little. "It also said I was _persistent._ "

"I don't disagree," Derek says, "but I also don't think it's a compliment."

"Of course you don't." Mark smirks. "I haven't seen your report yet, Derek, but do you think there's a one-word description for _walks away when things get tough_?"

"Okay, okay," Addison has her hand on Derek's arm now; he hasn't done anything more than take a half step forward, but he can feel his blood pressure spiking and hear Addison speaking quietly to him.

"You're an angry guy, Derek," Mark announces at full volume.

"No one's interested in your opinion," Addison says sharply. "Walk _away_ , Mark."

"Isn't that Derek's job?"

There's a moment in which Derek can just hear the sound of fist on bone, how satisfying it would feel to throw a punch in that smug face—

And then the pressure of his wife's hand grounds him once again, and he catches his staggered breath. Inhale, exhale … and the anger dissipates just as surely as it arrived.

Mark … doesn't matter.

And Derek is well aware of what _does_ matter.

"Derek is going to walk away now," he says calmly, speaking of himself in the third person, "it's an excellent suggestion, in fact, since he's not interested in speaking to you. Addison?"

She's already resting a hand on his arm, but she shifts when he speaks her name to tuck her hand through his elbow instead. With that, they walk away together while Mark, open-mouthed, stands and watches them.

..

"Are you okay?" Addison asks once they're several hallways away from that unpleasant interaction.

"I'm fine." Derek glances at her. "I'm sorry," he adds. "I know he's not worth it, he's just—"

"—an ass," Addison supplies. "I know."

"Are _you_ okay?" He pauses to peer at her face, drawing her toward the windows to let other people pass. "You don't need extra stress."

 _Other than Bizzy_ , he doesn't say.

"I'm fine, Derek. We both are."

"You sure?" He directs his words to her bump, which makes her smile, and then is quiet for a moment. "I don't want the baby to think … ." He's stops talking, a little embarrassed.

"The baby thinks you handled that beautifully," Addison says, her voice soft.

"How do you know that?"

"Well, because _I_ think so … and all those endorphins I got when you put Mark in his place?" She turns to smile at him. "Straight through the umbilical cord to your son. He loved it."

Derek tilts his head. "Is that science?"

"Which one of us is the baby doctor?"

"That's fair." He pauses. "Listen, Addie, if Mark ends up getting Chief …"

Addison listens.

" … Cleveland," Derek says decisively. "You, me, and the baby."

"It's a plan." Addison smiles. "We can learn to cheer for the Cardinals."

"That's St. Louis." Derek shakes his head.

"… oh."

"Tell you what." He rests a hand on her back as they turn the corner. "You can teach the baby all about fetal surgery, but you let me handle baseball."

"That's fair."

"I thought you might say that."

..

Addison hasn't been thrilled with Mark for quite a while now, going back quite a bit further than his overly dramatic re-entrance to Seattle Grace to try to drive a wedge through her relationship with Derek, his casually cruel comments about her pregnancy, the way he's been taunting them with his Chief prospects … to say the least, she has good reason for a grudge.

But she's the most annoyed about this morning's interaction for an utterly different reason: he took away some of the precious time before her mother arrives.

Fine, it's just an hour, but it's something.

Time for her to prepare.

Prepare as one can only for Bizzy, which means … well, unfortunately she can't drink at work, so actually she has no idea how to prepare.

Meditation?

Not really her style.

Prayer?

She's a WASP who's never gone to church other than Christmas, so the closest thing she can recall to a prayer would be her one cabinmate at horse camp in New Hampshire who used to stage-whisper her thanks to God before they all went to sleep at night for giving her the only real boobs in their year.

(Addison did make up for lack eventually, but it was hard for a while not to associate prayer with the rather smug gratitude for developing breasts.)

And she's pretty sure _Dear Jesus, thank you for not making me wear a training bra_ , isn't going to have much effect on Bizzy.

So she's going to have to find some inner peace the old fashioned way. What was it she read in the newest book from Lizzie ( _Stop Ruining Your Baby: Turning Negative Thoughts into Positive Pregnancies_ )? That's right, she's supposed to have a list of things that put her in a positive headspace-or-whatever so she can whip one out when needed.

(Her wording, not theirs. Still, though. Lists? She's got that one in the bag.)

And speaking of bags …

 **One.** _Shopping (Purses Edition)._ Assuming the list is in no particular order, since her husband is going to make a cameo any time now, just the smell of really good leather can send her right to some of her best shopping trips, popping in and out of boutiques with Savvy. But just in case, she'll make a separate entry for …

 **Two.** _Shopping (Shoes Edition)_. Is there any more positive headspace-or-whatever than slipping into a pair of butter-soft Italian boots with a perfectly pointed toe and a heel high enough to change her zip code? (No. There is not.)

 **Three.** _Shopping (Clothes Edition)._ Fine, this is getting repetitive. Enough shopping. But what can she say? It soothes her. She spent her childhood stuffed into uncomfortably high-necked blouses, unforgiving wool kilts, and she could go on. Fine, she will: Itchy sweaters she couldn't dare to scratch. Hard-soled mary-janes and sandals that never seemed to conform to her feet. Delicate taffeta dresses too fragile to play in. Stiff sticky-out skirts she couldn't sit down in without making sure her slip didn't show. Even her pajamas never felt right. So yes, as soon as she had her own credit card and had grown adept at hiding the clothes she knew Bizzy would throw out if she saw … shopping became a pretty damned positive headspace-or-whatever. It's not like she sticks to—heaven forbid— _loungewear._ (And no matter how many times _Elle_ or _Vogue_ calls it _athleisure_ , she never will, period.) But now—or at least pre-pregnancy—when she bought a slim-fitting skirt or a shoe with a higher-than-exactly-comfortable heel, she did it for her. She did it because something about that article of clothing, or that accessory, made it worth it. She has, not to put too fine a point on it, discerning taste. Discerning taste, and a black card, and a husband who if he couldn't appreciate her love of shopping, never complained when he got to take off said clothing … or what was underneath. Speaking of which.

 **Four.** _Sex._ Whatever, don't judge, she's in the second trimester. Sex might as well be every entry on the list. And last night's was … well … never mind. It's _private._ The point is, it's been a journey to get back to a place with Derek where there was enough trust, enough comfort, that they were _them_ again. But she feels confident now that they have, which means that pretty much everything the two of them do alone, together? Extremely positive headspace. Zen, even. (Well, after a pretty high-intensity workout sometimes, but you get the idea.)

 **Five.** _Massage._ Not the dirty kind. Let's assume all the dirty things are included in number four. Here, she means the kind of massage you pay for, the toe-curling, scalp-tingling kind where you don't even know if you're asleep or awake. Or alive or dead. (She's had some pretty good massages in her day. That one place they went in Mexico, with the whole separate cabin for couples' massages, the plunge pool and the skylights and the rose petals, and then the—but that's veering too close to number four. Moving on.) And for maximum positivity, a massage from someone who does not later call her husband to announce her secret pregnancy.

 **Six.** _Baths._ She loves a bath. Always has, always will, maybe going back to when she was a little girl and her sweet old nanny used to sit in there with her and read her chapter books while she splashed in the big tub and pretended the water wasn't getting chilly because she loved hearing the stories. They read a lot that way. _Adventures of Tom Sawyer._ And _Huckleberry Finn_. Her nanny was pretty progressive, looking back; she didn't think Addison only had to read books marketed to girls. (Fine, Mark Twain is problematic in his own way … but it was the seventies. Cut her nanny some slack.) The grownup version of those peaceful childhood baths involves oversized soaking tubs, imported bath salts Derek used to tease her about, that perfect little ledge to hold a glass of good wine and (to be quite honest) sometimes a decent helping of number four, too.

 **Seven.** _Wine._ She's a Montgomery. It comes with the territory. And if this doesn't belong on a pregnancy headspace list? Fine, make it a half a glass. Make it zero glasses and just smelling a bottle of … Sicilian red. That would be nice. No, Barolo. Or that one Argentinian wine Savvy found that—well, you get the idea.

 **Eight.** _Swimming._ It popped into her head. Maybe it was the bathtub memories. Who knows? But she used to love swimming at their beach house, in the waves when their roughness permitted or in the pool. Some of her fondest memories from Shepherd family gatherings involve swimming with their nieces and nephews. And then there's swimming with Derek, which … oh hell, she might as well put everything involving Derek under number four.

 **Nine.** _Surgery._ This may not have been what Lizzie's book had in mind. But that feeling of closing after a really flawless procedure? (Yes. She can admit some of her procedures are flawless. It's not vanity if it's accurate.) That is a very positive head … feeling. Or whatever.

 **Ten.** _Derek._ This one is kind of embarrassing, so just … remember that these lists are _private._ And yes, her husband pops up in other entries already, particularly number four and all its progeny, but this entry is different. It's less about their toe-tingling times together and more … quiet. Like last night, eating burgers side by side at the bar of that harborside restaurant, talking a little, laughing sometimes, just being together. Or later that night, looking at the stars from the porch of the trailer while Doc nuzzled their legs. Or this morning (and she's taking the fifth on whether any four was involved before this), when Derek brought her a cup of decaf in bed and talked to her about lake fishing so she wouldn't obsess too much over the Bizzy breakfast. Maybe that's what Zen is. She's not really sure.

… but she's a surgeon, and she doesn't need to be thinking about _Zen_ or positivity or whatever Lizzie's book says. She can just focus on—

"Dr. Shepherd!"

She's jolted out of her attempt to figure out the best way to keep her headspace positive by Cristina Yang.

… oh, excellent, that particular intern's manner is so calm and peaceful, that will definitely help.

"What is it, Yang?"

"I, uh, I need to ask you something."

"Fine." Presumably about a patient. "Ask me," she prods when the intern doesn't speak right away.

Yang draws breath.

And then: "Did you get pregnant on purpose?"

Addison blinks. That wasn't what she expected.

"Parson me?"

"Oh, sorry. Did you, uh, did you get pregnant on purpose, _Dr. Shepherd?"_

"My name wasn't the issue, Dr. Yang," she says patiently.

"Oh." Yang pauses. "It's … a rude question?" Her tone sounds like it's a guess.

"It's a blunt one."

"I'm a blunt person."

"I've noticed." Addison props a hand on her hip. "What exactly is your question, Yang?"

The intern blinks. "I don't want children," she says.

"That's not a question." Addison pauses, surveying the other woman. Slowly she nods. "That's … not a question," she repeats, hearing her inflection change.

"Yeah. I thought maybe you – were like that too." Yang looks at her. "When you came out here, and you were all—whatever."

(Addison finds herself grateful that Yang didn't finish the sentence.

"And you didn't have kids yet," Yang continues, "and you were already really old when you got here."

Her eyes widen. "I was already – "

" – old _er_ , I mean," Yang corrects quickly. "Older … uh, ma'am."

Addison massages the back of her neck. It's going to be a very long **morning**.

"I just wanted to know if you – if Dr. Shepherd, the other Dr. Shepherd, did he talk you into getting pregnant? Did you—did you plan it?"

"Yang."

"I know it's blunt. And rude." But the intern is looking at her so intently, almost desperately, that she can't even scold her.

"It's all right. We were both … surprised … at the news," Addison says finally – a euphemism if anything for how Derek found out. "But no, it's not something either of us had ever ruled out. It was an issue of timing, if anything. Of readiness, Yang, and can you please tell me why this is so – "

"Burke wants babies," she blurts.

"Oh." Addison considers this. Preston has been solicitous during her pregnancy, which she's appreciated, in particular when she was looking for support about the cardiac irregularities on the ultrasound and yesterday during the ordeal with the toxic patient. And she's seen him be tender with one or another of her own tiny patients on a consult … but she's never considered his private life so specifically.

Yang nods. "Burke wants babies. A lot of babies."

"A lot?"

"A _lot_ of babies." Yang pauses. " … a non-zero amount of babies," she clarifies.

Ah.

"And you want – "

"A zero amount of babies."

Addison looks at her for a moment. "The pregnancy you lost," she prompts carefully.

She recalls Yang white-faced on the gurney, her head lolling as she fought to stay conscious, the question she's had to ask many times with emergent ectopics. _How attached was she to this pregnancy?_

"Very, very accidental, and I had already scheduled a termination." Yang stands up a little straighter. "You can judge that if you want, Dr. Shepherd, but –"

"I'm an abortion provider, Yang," Addison says tiredly. "I don't judge other women's reproductive choices. I don't generally get this level of detail from my interns, either, but you approached _me._ "

They're both silent for a moment.

"You're reconsidering marrying Preston," she realizes.

Yang doesn't respond.

"The wedding is in – "

She stops.

It's always been a personal nightmare for her, being left at the altar – _your abandonment issues are so subtle, Addie, really_ – to the point that Derek finally just surrendered his wallet at their rehearsal dinner and let her lock it in the hotel safe with a code only she knew while he diplomatically kept his back turned. If he was offended, if he thought she was being ridiculous … he didn't let on.

He just accepted it.

She swallows hard now, remembering.

"Don't marry him if you're not sure," she says finally.

"Were you sure?"

"I'm never sure of anything," she admits before she can censor herself. "But I knew I would rather … be unsure _with_ him, than without him. Does that make sense?"

"No."

She has to fight a smile. "Yang … Cristina. If you don't want to marry Preston, tell him. Before the wedding. Tell him."

Yang wrinkles her nose.

"You think that conversation will be _less_ awkward after the wedding?" Or – heaven help all of Seattle – _at_ the wedding?

"I can't."

"Yang …"

"I shouldn't have said anything."

"Yang."

"Surgery. I need to go … surgery."

And then she's gone.

 _Interns._

..

"Okay. Bizzy's going to be here in twenty minutes," she reminds Derek. "She's never late, and—O'Malley, there you are, do you have Ms. Nour's bloodwork?"

"The lab said they need another half hour." O'Malley regards nervously. "Is that—I mean, I could go back, and—"

"In a half hour, Bizzy will be here," Addison says, turning to Derek. "So that's not the worst interruption. It's fine, O'Malley," she says, turning back to the intern. "In fact, it's more than fine. When you get Ms. Nour's bloodwork, come and find me, and no matter what I'm doing, I want you to interrupt. Even if I'm, uh, with my mother."

"Your mother?" The intern pauses, seeming to be putting two and two together. "Why do you call your mother Bizzy?" he, then widens his eyes nervously when she simply looks at him in response. "No, I was just – wondering. Sorry. Not that it's any of my … business. I don't even know why I asked in the first—"

"It's her name, O'Malley," she says, taking pity on him.

"… oh."

The intern stands there, looking from Addison to Derek and back again, perhaps recalling the added stress of the third Dr. Shepherd in town when Nancy visited.

"Come and find me," Addison says one last time, pointing a finger. "Right, O'Malley?"

"Yes, ma'am."

… two _ma'am_ s today. She might need to invest in some new eye cream.

Not that she doesn't look pretty damned good, but hey, any excuse for new eye cream is a good one. Since she can't zip any of her favorite dresses these days, she has to get pleasure somewhere. (Did she forget to add makeup to her list of shopping positivity? Let's just consider it added.)

..

"Shepherd."

He looks up to see Miranda Bailey. "Yes?"

"Do you know where your wife is?"

"What do you mean? Is she all right?" Derek reaches nervously for his blackberry. "Did something happen?"

"She's fine. Physically, she's fine, I'm sure." Bailey's brows furrow. "She's in the lobby. She's talking to a woman about this tall," and she lifts a hand over her own diminutive height, "kind of an older version of Addison except she's intimidating in the bad way."

" _Bizzy._ " Derek groans. "She's early. Of course she was early. Does Addison seem okay?" He's already started walking, Bailey following him.

"She seemed okay.

"Addison introduced me," Bailey says.

"Oh." Derek presses the elevator button again. Why is it taking so long. "And, uh, how did that go?"

Bizzy's track record with humans isn't great.

"Well, she was very polite. Said hello, asked about my job."

"Oh," Derek says again, relieved. "Well, that's not so bad. I mean, that's fine."

"And then she said I seemed like a real credit to my—"

" _Parents_. Please say parents," Derek interrupts, cringing.

"Okay, I'll say parents." Bailey raises her eyebrows. "Your mother in law didn't, though."

The elevator dings, finally

"I'm sorry," Derek says hastily. "I'm very sorry about her."

"Don't be sorry, Shepherd. She's not my mother-in-law. Or my mother," Bailey adds, studying his face for a moment. The elevator doors open and Derek hastens on.

"Addison turned out pretty well, huh?" Bailey says as he presses the button for the lobby, repeatedly. "Growing up with that woman for a mother."

 _Oh, you don't know the half of it._

All he can do is nod as the doors close.

The doors have no sooner opened in the lobby than he's corralled by a resident with an urgent CT question. _Damn it._

Why did Bizzy have to be early?

"Just make it quick," he says shortly, not really caring how he sounds at this point.

..

"Addison, are you listening?"

"Yes, Bizzy," she lies, not for the first time. Her cheeks are still burning from the conversation with Miranda Bailey.

That's Bizzy: leaving a trail of apologies in her wake.

… never her own apologies.

"So this is the hospital where you work." Bizzy pivots slightly on one high heel, clearly unimpressed.

"Yes. This is it." Addison smooths the skirt of her dress. "So, did you want a cup of coffee, or—"

"Dr. Shepherd!"

She turns to see Cristina Yang for the second time that day. Oh, she'd better have a question about medicine this time.

"Yes, what is it, Yang?"

"George said you had a possible spinal tumor in one of the Hartwell twins and I was wondering if—" Her voice breaks off, and Addison has a moment of terror that she's about to be interrogated about her pregnancy. "You've been married for a long time, right?" she asks instead.

 _Great._

"Eleven years," Addison says. "Almost twelve. Why, are you taking a survery?"

"No, of course not, I just—" Yang rotates, taking in Bizzy.

There's a moment that probably sounds like silence to Yang and very clearly sounds like _aren't you going to introduce me, Addison? You're being very rude, Addison. Remember your manners, Addison._

"Uh, Cristina Yang, one of the interns here, this is my mother."

"Bizzy," her mother says politely, offering a hand in her traditional Bizzy shape that looks more like she's waiting for a kiss until just the last minute, when it slides into a handshake.

Addison never quite mastered that motion. It always seemed so deceptive.

"Your _mother?_ " Yang's eyebrows rise so high they threaten to disappear into her hairline. "Oh. Oh, wow. Your mother is here."

"Yes, my mother is here." Addison taps the toe of her shoe impatiently. "Yang—"

"So you've probably been married a long time too," Yang says, glancing at Bizzy's left hand—it's not like you can miss the rings the Captain gave her. You can probably see them from Sputnik (not necessarily because of size, of course, that would be tacky, but the clarity … oh, the clarity).

"Yes," Bizzy says without emotion.

"Like, a _really_ long time," Yang continues, her brow furrowing now with the calculation. "I mean, you're Dr. Shepherd's mom, and she must be at least—"

Addison clears her throat and Yang stops insultingly calculating her age, actually pausing for half a breath. before her next question.

"How did you know it was the right choice … marrying your husband, I mean?"

"Yang." Addison shakes her head.

 _This is a hospital, right? It's not just the live action set for my Freudian nightmares?_

"How did I know it was the right choice?" Bizzy repeats.

" _Yang_ ," Addison says, more sharply this time, then turns to her mother. "Bizzy, I think we should go and—"

"Addison, your friend asked a question. I don't want to be rude."

Addison finds herself at a loss for words, but her pager interrupts and—oh, you have _got_ to be kidding.

"I just have to … take this …" Her voice trails off as she slowly backs away.

 _Is now really the time to code?_

Apparently God heard her in between the impassioned pleas of adolescent girls everywhere to hurry up and fill the cups of her training bra, because just as she gets to the room, her patient—a sweet but chronically ill girl hardly out of her teens—draws a shuddering breath and the resident turns away in relief.

"False alarm, Dr. Shepherd," he says apologetically. "Sorry."

"Don't be sorry. That's good news." Addison looks down at her patient. "How are you feeling, Brandy?"

(With a slight wince, she tries not to imagine how Bizzy might react to that name.)

"I'm okay." Brandy smiles weakly. "I think I just got lightheaded 'cause _Bones_ was on TV and that guy is like …." She fans herself with the hand that doesn't have the IV.

Addison exchanges a glance with the resident, who shrugs; apparently, the eye candy wasn't doing anything for him.

"Look at him," Brandy says, apparently concerned that her doctors don't understand the severity of the situation; carefully, she angles the boxy remote control toward the television.

Addison peers at the screen.

"Oh, my, the patient care in this hospital is definitely thorough. She's got you watching her shows too?"

Addison looks up.

"I'm Therese, Brandy's mother."

"I'm Dr. Shepherd," Addison offers a hand—the normal way—now that she's finished her brief exam (of the patient as well as of the muscular actor still strutting on the television screen). "Your daughter gave us a slight scare, but she seems to be doing much better now."

"Oh, I was so worried." Therese looks from Addison to Brandy, running a hand through her short, frosted hair. She has the flattened vowels of the more rural locals around here. "Is she really okay?"

"Mom." Brandy sighs. "I told you I was okay. You didn't have to rush here." She looks up at Addison. "I said she shouldn't worry, but you know how Moms are."

Addison's cheeks color slightly.

"He is _fine._ " Brandy's mother looks intently at the screen. "Wasn't he on that other show you liked, honey?"

"Yeah, but he's not the one who—"

"—right, that was the other one." Her mother looks back at the screen for a moment. "His hair looks good that way."

It's a little short for Addison's taste, too crew-cut-like, but—

What is she doing?

Second trimester or no, she doesn't need to be scoping out actors pretending to be FBI agents, no matter how nicely they may fill out a suit.

"My mom watches all my shows with me," Brandy says, reaching her free hand toward her cup of water; her mother seems to notice and brings it to her lips before she has to grab it. "'cause I had to miss so much school to rest or whatever."

"Well, I had to," her mother says, smiling fondly at Brandy, then looking at Addison. "In those days, before we had the CFS more under control, my daughter couldn't really stay awake for a full show. I had to watch to make sure I could tell her the endings."

"It was kind of awkward when Buffy lost her virginity," Brandy muses, "but you put a good spin on it."

The resident clears his throat.

"Brezinski, I'll wrap up here. I want you to monitor fluid output and keep me informed." Addison gets a few last pieces of information from him before sending him on his way, and then turns back to her patient.

"You're feeling better, Brandy?"

"I am. Except I'm thirsty. I really want a Coke. Can I have a Coke?"

"I'd rather you didn't. Caffeine can put stress on your heart," she simplifies, "which can affect the baby."

"I'll go get you something to drink, honey," Therese offers, smiling at her daughter, then glances up at Addison. She's wearing a tight top that Bizzy would probably file in the jezebel column along with Addison's maternity wrap dress, and her skin is weatherbeaten with a deep tan, like she's been working outside. She's probably younger than she looks. "No Coke, Doc?" she confirms."

"No Coke." As the door closes, Addison offers Brandy some water, an admittedly unexciting consolation prize.

She takes a few sips then glances at the door her mother just passed through.

"My mom's been so great. She's always done everything for me, worked two jobs, sometimes three … ." Brandy looks down at the covers. "I felt so terrible when I took that test, like I was letting her down. My boyfriend hasn't even come to a single appointment."

Addison nods sympathetically.

"But my mom said I was an accident too and I was the best thing that ever happened to her." Brandy's cheeks turn pink. "Even though I was a lot of work. I hope Kaylee doesn't have CFS."

"I hope not too." Addison moves the sonogram. "But if she does, I think you'll do a fine job handling it. You have good experience. … So, um, you've decided to go with Kaylee?" she adds.

"Yeah. Kylie's too popular." Brandy looks at the screen, where her daughter's profile, reassuringly normal, looks back. "She's doing okay in there, right?"

"She's doing great." Addison can't help smiling at her patient's expression. "Look over to the left of the screen," she suggests. "She's just about to—"

"Whoa!" Brandy laughs. "I feel her a lot but seeing her kick me … ."

"… is different," Addison finishes. She's heard this before, but now? Twenty weeks and a day into her own pregnancy, she actually understands it. Connecting the motion on the screen to the sensations in her body isn't something she learned on the job.

 _I learned that from you, kiddo._

"Yeah, totally." Brandy twines a piece of her blonde hair around one finger. "Hey, Dr. Shepherd, you're the same amount of pregnant as me, right?"

Okay, it's clumsily phrased, but Addison gets it.

"I'm a few weeks behind you, Brandy. Your baby should be born," fingers crossed, "about a month before mine."

"Oh, cool." Brandy leans back against the pillows. "Did you pick a name yet?"

"Not yet."

This level of personal question from a patient is also new. What she's used to is patients realizing she and Derek are married and commenting on it: _whoa, I thought it was just a common name, but you guys are a couple? Two surgeons? Wow._

Pregnancy, though? It seems to make people feel automatically closer to her. Humanizes her, if you will. Which is quite irritating when she catches someone eyeing her bump as she sips decaf (decaf!) with far more judgment than she likes. But when it's a patient, especially a sweet one like Brandy … well, that's different.

"You can use my boy one if you want." Brandy flashes her a smile. "Since I'm not using it."

"Oh, well—"

"Brayden," she reports triumphantly, "with a Y. See, it's kind of like my letters but moved around to be really manly."

 _Really._

"That's a nice name, Brandy. I'll definitely keep it in mind."

"Or Cadence."

"With a Y?" Addison teases her gently, feeling guilty about it almost immediately.

 _Bizzy, this is your fault._

"No. But with a K. Kadence," she repeats. "Do you like the names?" she asks hopefully.

 _Uh …_

"They're great names," Addison says as heartily as she can. "But you may want to save them, Brandy, in case you have another baby and it's a boy the next time."

"Oh, that's true." Brandy looks wistful. "I always wanted a brother, but I'm an only child. What about you?"

Okay, what's next, _kumbaya_? Addison opens her mouth to gently set the doctor-patient boundary. This isn't a slumber party.

"I have a brother. In fact, he's coming to Seattle to visit tonight."

 _Addison, what is wrong with you? This baby is making you soft._

She rests a hand on her bump with a quick apology to the baby.

"Oh, that's so cool!" Brandy sighs happily. "What's his name? I should keep track of boy names too for next time."

 _Seriously? Do not answer that._

"Um."

 _Fine. Just say: "My brother's name is Dr. Montgomery, thank you very much." Anything else would be totally inappropriate._

It's Bizzy. Bizzy is in her head. Damn it.

"His name is Archer," Addison says boldly, hoping wherever Bizzy is right now she's clutching her pearls in response.

"Oh, I _love_ that name. You can definitely use Brayden _or_ Kadence, Dr. Shepherd, because if I have a boy next time, he's definitely gonna be Archer."

 _Making the family proud again, Addie._

"That's great." Addison closes her patient's chart, amusing herself briefly picturing Derek's face when she informs him their son's name will be Brayden Kadence Shepherd. Or Brayden Kadence—

And then she pauses, realizing they haven't actually had the _how are we doing the surname_ talk. But … one thing at a time.

"Your numbers are looking really good, Brandy, and so are Kaylee's," Addison says, pronouncing both names with all the dignity she can imbue. If she can get out of here, she can actually go grab a decaf before Bizzy arrives, and maybe a muffin because Brayden is getting used to hospital-issue carbs.

 _I did not just call you Brayden. I'm sorry, Kadence. I mean—I'm sorry, baby._

"I'd like to keep you here overnight, but if things stay on this track, you can look forward to doing home tomorrow."

Brandy looks understandably delighted with the news. Addison is _thisclose_ to actually leaving when the door opens; it's Brandy's mother, Therese, again, with Brandy's requested drink.

"I got 7up," Therese says brightly, "since Dr. Shepherd said you shouldn't have caffeine."

Addison tries not to wince. _Next time I'll say "soda" altogether._

Therese busies herself getting her daughter set up, and then reaches for the other cup in the cardboard tray. "This one's for you, Doc."

Addison looks up.

"It's decaf coffee." Therese shrugs a little. "I figured you didn't drink real coffee since you're pregnant but at least it's close, right?"

She's touched, and thanks her patient's mother before taking a welcome sip.

"I didn't know if you wanted milk or sugar … ."

"I like it black, actually. This is perfect. It's so thoughtful of you."

"I figured you were probably tired, working so hard when you're expecting. I was tired a lot when I was carrying this one." Therese smiles at Brandy. "She used to somersault in my stomach before I had my coffee."

Admittedly, the coffee tastes great. And she did want it.

"I told Dr. Shepherd she could have my boy names," Brandy reports to her mother; apparently not a moment of her day goes by she doesn't want to share.

"Oh, that was nice of you, honey." Therese smiles at her daughter. "Naming your baby can be a real personal thing," she adds.

Addison hopes she can escape the conversation before the provenance of _Brandy_ comes up. Hopefully a cocktail situation and not a strip club, but she can't be too sure. Or a … cheerleader of some sort?

"When I was pregnant with Brandy," Therese begins.

 _So much for avoidance._

"I was in a rough spot. My parents had kicked me out—they were real religious and didn't like that I was pregnant—and I was sleeping on a friend's couch dancing at a place in Chehalis that wasn't much good."

… so the strip club thing. Addison hopes her wince isn't too obvious.

"I met this older guy one night. He realized I was pregnant and at first I was afraid he was going to ask for a refund."

Addison wonders if she can fake a page.

"…since I was supposed to give him a lap dance…"

 _Or a stroke._

" … but he didn't ask for a refund, he was actually real nice, turned out he owned a couple places out in the hills and got me one rented for cheap so I didn't have to sleep on that lumpy couch anymore. He used to check in on us and everything."

 _Yeah, I bet his intentions were very pure._

"Once I told him I was worried 'cause I didn't have any books or anything to read to the baby. And he showed up one day with a whole box of them."

… okay, fine, that part of the story is nice, but she can only assume that an exchange of sexual favors is coming next.

"There was this book about St. Bernard dogs and how they go out on mountains in Switzerland with a barrel of brandy wine around their necks to save people who're lost in the snow freezing to death and bring 'em back to life."

Brandy smiles expectantly like she knows where the story is going; Addison feels her stomach tighten.

"And I thought, well, that's like this baby," and she looks fondly at her daughter, "she saved me too, like I was freezing before. And then I was pregnant and I was warm. And I wasn't lost anymore."

Therese stops talking.

"I guess that must sound silly." Her tone is a little embarrassed.

"It's not silly. It's beautiful," Addison says softly. Her heart is pounding, her cheeks heated. "If you'll excuse me, I have another patient, but I'll check on you later. Good to see you, Therese. Brandy, try to stay in bed unless you're taking a slow walk, okay?"

She ducks out of the patient's room as fast as she can, closing the door behind her. She leans against the wall outside Brandy's room, listening to her own thumping heartbeat and hating herself.

She was so quick to assume Therese with her frosted hair and leathery skin had named her daughter for a stripper, so fast to judge their lives and their choices and consider them less than. Instead of focusing on the love she saw between them, how solicitous Brandy's mother was of her. How much time she devotes to her daughter, despite working multiple jobs. Knowing her likes and dislikes, even keeping up with her television shows. The way she thought to get a decaf coffee for Addison, too, in the cafeteria. Her cheeks flush with shame.

Snobbery. That's what it was. Narrow-mindedness, and she hates it, because it's not her. It's everything she's tried to get away from. It's …

 _It's Bizzy._

The thought slams into her almost painfully. Bizzy flew across the country to interfere in her life, and the taint of her is everywhere now. That's how it's always been with Bizzy: she seeps into you if you spend too much time with her. Like how she could always tell when Archie had been out at the estate with her parents just by the change to his flippant tone, the way he adopted some of their mother's supercilious phrasing.

Now she's here, in Seattle, and it's seeping into Addison.

Which is dangerous, because everything in Addison right now?

Is seeping into her baby.

Her hands fold protectively over her bump.

 _Toxic-adjacent_ , that's how she described her childhood last night. Except that toxicity was supposed to stay on the east coast, where it belonged, not fly out here and seep into Addison's life. Not turn her into a snob when her patients opened up to her.

She swallows hard.

 _Archer, you'd better hurry up getting here. And then you'd better leave, and take Bizzy with you._

… and she remembers that Bizzy was talking to Cristina Yang, and she has to go and find her.

Damn it.

..

She finds Bizzy and Yang … right where she left them. Oh, Bailey is going to have a field day with this one. Parents in the hospitals, interns hanging out with them instead of working?

Yang seems to realize this and stands up a little straighter, looking embarrassed, as Addison approaches.

"I should, uh, I should check on … my patients," she says.

"Good idea, Yang."

And Bizzy must be fuming to have had to talk to the intern this long. Addison reminds herself to tell Richard to add social skills to the interns' orientation curriculum.

"Thank you," Yang says suddenly, impassionedly, turning to Bizzy. "I never really thought of it that way before we talked."

"You're welcome, dear."

"I'm really grateful."

Addison is staring.

"It's my pleasure." And then Bizzy glances at Addison. "Well. My daughter's expression tells me you'd better hurry back to work … Cristina. It was very nice meeting you."

"Sorry. I mean, _thank you_ ," Yang says one more time before scurrying off.

And Addison is left open-mouthed in her wake.

"Close your mouth, dear, in case an errant fisherman is passing by." Bizzy raises an eyebrow. "Or your husband, since I understand the fishing in Seattle is excellent."

She's going to answer her mother.

She is, except….

She can't form the words.

Bizzy was _advising_ Cristina Yang? Talking to her? _Helping_ her?

Bizzy, who's expressed nothing but judgment over Addison's choices?

Her shoulders tense.

Her jaw tightens.

"Now." Bizzy straightens her scarf. "I'd like to see your office."

Addison blinks. "My—office?"

"Yes, dear, I hope they've given you an office. Or did you want to stand here all afternoon? It's very crowded in this hallway.

"No, I didn't want to—it's this way," Addison manages to get the words out, still trying to process what she saw.

..

Addison's not in the lobby.

With or without Bizzy, she's not there.

Derek rubs a frustrated hand through his hair. He's tried calling her—no answer.

The last thing he wanted to do was leave Addison alone with her mother.

He takes a deep breath. He'll find them. He'll find them before Bizzy can do any damage, and it will be fine, and—

"Dr. Shepherd! Mr. Nelson started seizing in the tube!"

… right after he puts out this fire.

 _Addison, hang on. I'm coming._

..

Bizzy doesn't speak to her again until they've reached her office and then, once Addison holds the door open for her, her mother stands a dozen feet into the room, pivoting slowly on the carpet.

"It isn't much," Addison says before she can stop herself. "My office in New York was bigger, and I had a hand in the decorating, but my practice there was … ." Her voice trails off.

 _Why are you defending your office to Bizzy?_

"Are you going to ask me to sit, Addison?"

She feels her cheeks flush at the correction.

"Of course. Won't you sit down." Addison gestures toward the couch.

Bizzy does sit down, _a lady always sits carefully, Addison, cross your legs, dear, you're not French_ , and then rests a hand on the arm of the couch for a moment, looking displeased.

"Synthetic fabrics can be very irritating to the skin, Addison. You would be better served—"

"What the hell was that?" Addison blurts before she can stop herself, interrupting her mother _never, ever interrupt your elders, Addison_.

Bizzy looks taken aback at her outburst—still calm, always unruffled—but still, taken aback.

"I beg your pardon?"

"With Yang. Talking to her or—whatever it was that you were doing. You were what, giving her advice?"

"We were speaking," Bizzy says neutrally, "as you know, because you were speaking with us too before you took your leave."

"I had a patient. I didn't _take my leave._ " Addison shoves her hair behind her ears. Her heart is pounding again and she tries to draw a deep breath. She doesn't want the baby to feel her stress. "I don't understand. All you've done since you got here was complain about me. My hairstyle is too severe. My maternity clothes are too slutty," and she's too upset even to enjoy how much Bizzy must be cringing internally at the word _slutty_ , "my office is too small, my couch is too … polyester, but you meet Cristina Yang for ten minutes and you're _bonding?_ "

Bizzy blinks. "What is your question, Addison?"

"What is my _question_?" It's Addison's turn to be taken aback. A memory flashes into her head—walking in on Bizzy talking about some charity event or another to Susan, her mother's hardworking and long-suffering social secretary, and they were actually … talking. Laughing, almost like they enjoyed each other's company. Like Bizzy was _human_. "My question is, how can you be like that with other people but not with me?"

Her voice cracks a little on the last word.

Damn hormones.

Bizzy doesn't respond, and Addison has to swallow hard so she won't cry. She absolutely, positively, under _no_ circumstances will cry.

Not in front of Bizzy.

Not ever.

"I asked you one thing … about when you were pregnant … and you couldn't even answer it. Yang asks you about her … love life or whatever, and you're all ears?"

"Addison."

"No, it's not—it doesn't matter." She takes a deep breath. "Except it does. It matters to me, but not to you. I'm … not a person to you," she says, realizing it as she speaks. "I never have been. Not then and not now."

"Pardon?" Bizzy asks again.

"I wasn't a _person_ to you," Addison repeats. "I wasn't real. Not in the womb, not out of the womb—oh, would you stop making that face, _womb_ isn't a dirty word."

"Really, Addison."

"Really!" Addison feels her heart speeding up even more. It's now or never. "You didn't think about me. Not when you were pregnant. Not when I was born. You didn't _worry_ about me. You never put me before anything, or … or thought of me at all. Your decisions had nothing to do with me. Not one."

"You can't understand," Bizzy says tightly. "Not until you're a mother."

"I already am." Addison stands, resting a hand on her bump. From the beginning, all she's wanted to do was avoid Bizzy's mistakes. Maybe it's easier than she feared. "I already am a mother," she repeats, "and I've already done a lot better than you ever did."

Bizzy touches the necklace at her throat, briefly. "Perhaps it's time for me to go."

"No." Addison finds herself actually moving toward the door before she forces herself to stay put. "No, it's not time for you to go. It's time for you to answer me."

"Addison." Bizzy hasn't stood up, so that's—something? Her legs are tightly crossed, her lips pressed together.

"Did you like _anything_ about being a mother? Ever?" Addison props her hands on her hips.

Bizzy is quiet for a moment and when she speaks again, something in her voice seems older. Wearier. "You're … trapping me, Addison. You're trapping me, and I won't have it.

"I'm not. I'm talking to you!" She brushes tears out of her eyes. "This is talking. I'm talking, and I'm—I'm _asking_ , Bizzy— _mother_ —I just want to know. I need to know."

"What is it that you _need_ to know?" Bizzy asks in that same tired voice, turning Addison's words back to her.

She dares herself to say it.

She dares herself to stop.

… she says it.

"You never wanted us, Archer and me … did you?"

And then she braces herself, hard, for her mother's answer.

* * *

 _Whew! Over 11K words and Bizzy is definitely not finished yet. Neither is Addison. See you next week to pick up right where we left off with Bizzy's answer. Meanwhile, wish me luck; I'm in the beginning stages of updating The Climbing Way (I know, I know) and actually wrapping it up. BUT this is QPQ, so here, I would love to hear your thoughts on this chapter, what the Sheplet's name should be, and whether you think Bizzy would enjoy seeing Hamilton (assuming she lives that long). And apologies to everyone in the Revolutionary War for the liberties I've taken with your history ... but since the Captain's official name on Private Practice is Charles, I really couldn't resist naming him after Charles Lee._

 _Thank you so much for reading and reviewing! See you next Sunday! xoxo_


	37. Plans

**Thank you for the comments on the previous chapter. I am so grateful, especially to those of you who've been chugging along commenting every chapter. I love this story, and I love hearing from you about it, so thank you!**

 **I hope you enjoy this chapter.**

* * *

 ** _Plans  
_**

 _Gestational Age: Twenty Weeks, One Day_ _  
_ _Baby is the Size of: an artichoke (yes, it took two more books to escape the unacceptably pudgy cantaloupe … but at least Bizzy will be leaving town soon, and even if an artichoke is somewhat rounded, it's still a vegetable, so that must count for something)_ _  
_ _Said Maternal Grandmother: is in Seattle, in baby's mother's office at this very moment  
Baby's Mother: had the bright idea to confront her  
The Other Shoe: just might be dropping_

 _.._

Addison's words hang in the air after she says them.

 _You never wanted us, Archer and me … did you?_

There's one long, weighty moment of silence before her mother speaks.

"No," Bizzy says simply, "I didn't."

The answer shouldn't surprise her; still, somehow, it stings.

If she knows Bizzy the subject is closed, except …

"Your father wanted children," she continues, her face unreadable.

 _He has a fine way of showing it_ , but in fairness Addison can remember odd moments of playfulness from her earliest years, sailing with him on breezy afternoons in the country, chasing the old foxhounds at Bizzy's estate, sitting atop his shoulders while he skated on the frozen lake. They were short lived, perhaps, and overshadowed by what he put her through afterwards, but she can grudgingly admit her father seemed on occasion to get some enjoyment from his children.

Bizzy, though? She has no such memories featuring her.

The Captain wanted children, then. And he didn't want monogamy. So …

She takes a deep breath and asks.

"Why did you marry him? Did you love him?"

"Really, Addison." Bizzy frowns. "I'm not one of those – modern mothers who think their children are their _friends_. It's not an appropriate question."

"I know it's not, but I'm asking it anyway."

Bizzy just studies her for a moment and Addison waits to be rebuffed.

She's not going to answer.

Obviously.

"… he was nice," Bizzy says after a long silence.

"H was nice?" Addison echoes. "Even when—"

She stops talking.

Bizzy's expression has changed; it's subtle but it's there. The visual version of speaking WASP. Addison realizes she's broken an unspoken agreement not to bring up the other women, the cheating, the lies.

"I'm sorry," she says hesitantly. "I didn't mean to bring up … I realize that was later …." Her voice trails off.

"If you're finished?" Bizzy asks coolly.

"I'm finished," she says, feeling about eight years old. What are the rules in this new world, this room where her mother answers questions?

Bizzy just nods, a nod Addison knows well: it's slight, it's regal and resigned all at once: _finally, you've acceded to my wishes—took long enough._

"So … he was nice," Addison repeats thoughtfully. "That's why you married him?"

"Don't dismiss _nice_ , Addison, if you knew some of the boys who …" Bizzy shakes her head. "Your father was nice. He was smart, and he had interests. He wanted to be a surgeon."

And he became one.

Of course: he's the Captain. He always gets what he wants.

"He was passionate about things," Bizzy continues.

Things like … women?

"Sailing," Bizzy clarifies, an eyebrow arched as if she'd read her mind. "He wanted to _do_ things. If I had to meet one more … suitor who was running his grandfather's company or managing his great-grandparents' estate I would have screamed. The Captain was different. He didn't talk to me like he expected me just to … twitter and giggle and drop my handkerchief to entice him to pick it up. He knew I had my own thoughts."

It's the most her mother has ever said and Addison is almost afraid to respond in case she hasn't realized she's actually … sharing something.

"Your brains don't just come from your father, you know," Bizzy says, looking down at her hands in her lap before looking up again. "He may be a surgeon, but those thick books you used to drag everywhere—" and get scolded for it, too – "that was from me."

Addison blinks.

"I used to read, before—when I had time to do things I wanted to do. I used to read things. I used to _think_ things. I wasn't always someone's wife, you know. Someone's mother."

 _You never wanted to be someone's mother._ She doesn't say it out loud: _You wouldn't even let us call you mother._

"I could have done things," Bizzy continues. "I could have _been_ things, but I was a Bradford Forbes and I was expected to be quiet and stay out of the papers and marry well and … raise children."

She stops talking as if she's just remembered one of those children is present.

"You didn't want to be a mother," Addison summarizes quietly.

"I didn't get a say!"

Addison stares. Bizzy doesn't raise her voice, Bizzy would never raise her voice.

"No one asked me. No one would have—can you imagine, telling _my_ mother I didn't want to get married? That I didn't want children?"

"Bizzy …"

"These days, you can say those sorts of things. You can say you never would have chosen motherhood, you can say it's difficult and tedious and a waste of your skills and people call you _brave_. No one said that when I was young."

Her voice sounds tired now.

"… So no, Addison, I didn't want to have children. And I didn't like being pregnant. I hated it. I know that's not what you want to hear. It felt … wrong, and strange, like someone I didn't invite showing up to a party and just … taking over. I hated every minute of it."

"I get it." Addison finds herself resting a hand unconsciously over her bump, as if to reassure her son.

"But I didn't hate you."

She looks up at her mother's voice.

"I didn't hate you, and I didn't hate your brother. It wasn't your fault."

..

 _Finally._ Derek leaves the exam room, waiting until he's outside to give the fellow instructions tinged with annoyance for how long this has taken. He'll feel guilty about that later, once he works everything out. That's just the way it is sometimes; Derek hasn't always been senior.

And Addison still isn't answering her phone.

He makes his way toward her office on instinct, feeling strongly that she wouldn't have left the hospital without giving him some sort of signal. Still, where Bizzy is involved … anything is possible.

The walls are thick, with privacy in mind, and there's no internal view of her office. But as he approaches, needing only half a second for the smile that always touches his lips when he sees her very long nameplate … he hears voices.

Voices that are familiar, but seem to actually be conversing.

He stands there another moment, not caring if he's attracting attention all but eavesdropping through the closed door of his wife's office, before he decides to trust his judgment and his decade and a half of Montgomery experience and leave the two of them to it.

..

" … but the petals were thinner than expected."

"That's disappointing," Addison says.

"Yes. There's always next year." Bizzy adjusts her scarf, and Addison takes a deep breath, still processing what happened in this office before they started speaking WASP again.

She indulged her mother, if you can call it that, after her surprisingly honest-sounding outburst.

And now, after a series of back and forth deeply neutral, incredibly _not_ honest-sounding discussion of flowers … Addison stops again to marvel at what happened before.

She and Bizzy talked.

They _actually_ talked.

In many ways, it's more than she ever expected, it's just …

She thinks sometimes, if she had even one memory, something to sustain. Even as small as the brief glimpses of the Captain when she was small, sailing or skating. Moments, that's all.

Just … something.

It's so weak, so … pathetic, to say it:

 _Did you ever like me?_

 _Did I ever make you happy?_

 _Were you ever glad I existed?_

 _Was I ever anything but a reminder of how you never got to be what you wanted?_

The need to ask is building up, but before she can—

"Red Riding Hood," Bizzy says suddenly, without introduction.

"… what? I mean, pardon?"

"Red Riding Hood," Bizzy repeats. "It was your birthday. You were seven. No … six. You wore a red velvet cape I had my dressmaker put together, with a silk lining. Do you remember?"

"I think I remember," Addison says, trying not to sound doubtful, still not sure where the story is going. Bizzy was responsible for most if not all of the clothes in Addison's oversized closet, many of them stiff and uncomfortable, none of them what she would have chosen. What's so special about a red cape?

"You don't remember."

Addison shakes her head.

"Ivy Bishop. Do you remember her?"

"I remember Ivy." Addison wrinkles her nose automatically. Ivy would be … thirty nine now, she must be, but Addison calls to mind the little girl with perfect silky black hair and not a single freckle, who used to tease Addison on every one of the uneven playing fields of their youth. The country club, the playground of their all-girls school, at parties and country weekends where their parents would require them to mingle, dancing school and the formal benefits of their teenage years.

"Yes. Well, her mother wasn't much different." Bizzy actually sounds almost … mischievous for a moment. "You wanted to be Little Red Riding Hood in the school … Christmas play, or whatever nonsense that was. Ivy told you that you couldn't because—"

" – the cape would clash with my hair," Addison remembers as she says it, the memory of her burning cheeks crashing into her present day self, the one who wears whatever she wants, whenever she wants it.

She's six years old again, hot tears in her eyes at the reminder of her ugly orange hair, her freckles, her ungainly long legs that left her at the back of every line when they gathered in size order.

She came home crying at the indignity of it—just to her nanny, she wasn't an idiot, but she can recall Bizzy stalking through the parlor to see her in disarray and scolding her for her lack of control before sending her to what was still known as the nursery.

It wasn't the first or the last time; it was a lesson she heard over and over: _save your tears for the privacy of your room, Addison. Not in public, Addison. Not here, Addison. Control yourself, Addison._

"I remember Ivy," Addison says finally, "and I remember what she said, but I don't remember your being very … sympathetic, to be honest."

"That's fair." Bizzy studies her hands for a moment.

"You told me I was being dramatic."

"Well, you were being dramatic." Bizzy looks at her. "I'm not going to apologize for it, Addison. I wanted you to learn to control your temper and your … emotions. You were always too open. It made it too easy for Ivy."

 _To hurt me_ , that's the end of the sentence. A confirmation that Addison opened herself up to pain by … having feelings. By expressing them. Was that Bizzy's experience too?

Addison tries to remember the point of the story. She cried about Ivy's words, Bizzy sent her upstairs—not without some scathing commentary on her lack of control—and then what, the nanny asked Bizzy later to have a cape made? Did she end up with the part?

"The cape was my idea," Bizzy continues. "I had it made for you and I gave it to you to wear at your party—oh, don't make that face, Addison, I'm not going to discuss this if you're going to be emotional."

"Sorry."

Bizzy nods. "You wore it for your birthday party. Ivy was there, of course, and all the other little girls loved your cape and made a fuss over it."

"You never told me the cape was from you," Addison recalls.

"I didn't want you to be spoiled, Addison. That wasn't the point."

"What was the point?"

"I didn't want that … child … telling you that you couldn't be what you wanted to be. That you had to … be constrained, because of something beyond your control."

"You never liked my hair, either."

"That's not the point, dear. And besides … you grew into it." For a moment, Bizzy looks almost fond.

Addison blinks. "Did I—"

"Let's not be indulgent."

So the story is over, then.

It's something, though.

A memory

A moment.

Bizzy was looking out for her. Maybe not in the way Addison wanted, maybe not in the way she needed, but in her way. It's … something.

Not something she can put on the mantel in the nursery.

But something.

"There's a picture of it somewhere," Bizzy says. "In your father's files or one of the offices … I'm not sure where. I recall the photograph, though, because the light was just right that afternoon—" she had a winter birthday, not a convenient one either – "and the red actually didn't clash."

"It didn't?"

"No." Bizzy adjusts her scarf. "Not that day, it didn't."

..

Derek looks up at the knock on his office door.

"How was it?" he asks as he stands and Addison makes a half-rueful face that looks … tired.

Very tired.

"It was … tiring," she says. She leans against him for a moment, then lets him lead her to the couch, where he sits down beside her. "It was tiring, and it was … a lot. But it was something."

She pauses.

"Does that make any sense?"

"Actually … it does."

"Yeah?" She looks up at him with tired eyes. "Derek … you may be spending too much time with me."

"I doubt it," he says, and she looks much less tired when a smile lights her face.

..

She wasn't kidding about being tired.

She's not even sorry that Bizzy, after their uncharacteristically open conversation—by Montgomery standards anyway—tells her cryptically that she has _affairs to take care of_ tonight and won't be joining her for dinner.

Which is … fine, considering how much Bizzy time she's logged today, except that her brother is supposed to be joining them for dinner, too.

Not that he's bothered to call and update her with flight information, but then, that's typical Archer. She can't complain about it, when she wants him to come here and be all … Archer, right?

Except she's not fully sure what she expects from tonight … or even whether it's going to happen at this point. She hasn't warned Bizzy. Has Archer? Her mother has never been fond of surprises, so … how is this going to go, exactly?

 **Option One.** _Archer Tells Bizzy._ It's simple, it's clean, it acknowledges the fact that her brother talks to her mother far more than she does, and most importantly, it leaves Addison out of the surprise equation. She likes this option.

 **Option Two.** _Archer Shows Up Unannounced … but Bizzy Doesn't Notice._ This is actually less about her mother's traditionally neglectful parenting and more pure logistics, but if she can manage to pick her brother up or at least route him somewhere and _then_ tell her mother … that could work. Or even better:

 **Option Three.** _Archer Shows Up Unannounced … and Then She Makes Him Tell Bizzy._ This one might be her top choice. She doesn't have to tell her mother, but she doesn't have to be there when Bizzy finds out her children were (gasp) _talking_ behind her back. Not just talking … planning. She'll just … tell Archer she's too pregnant for difficult conversations. Her brother has never liked to discuss pregnancy—probably his own nightmarish fear of causing one—so she's planning to use that excuse a lot.

 **Option Four.** _Bizzy Gets Surprised … but Addison Pleads Pregnancy._ This one is definitely inferior to the previous list's fourth entry, but as long as Archer is in the room, "I'm too pregnant for … " is going to become her excuse of choice. If she really gets in a jam, she'll just use the word _cervix_ in there. There's no way her brother will be able to handle it. ( _Child support_ might be worse, but there's no real way to use that as an excuse to leave the dinner table at twenty weeks.)

 **Option Five.** _Addison Tells Bizzy._ This involves standing up tall, throwing her shoulders back, and marching up to her mother with confidence to tell her that Archer is coming because Addison called him, and that he's here to usher Bizzy home. This option will not be happening.

 **Option Six.** _Archer and Bizzy Run into Each Other in the Archfield Lobby_. This is not her favorite option. It involves too much four for her liking ( _this_ week's four, thank you very much) without leaving her enough time to toss around _dilation_ or _placenta_ to distract her brother. She'll get blamed. She always gets blamed.

 **Option Seven.** _Archer Tells Bizzy, and Then Quietly Leaves with Her._ Oh, glorious seven. Much like five, this option will also not be happening.

 **Option Eight.** _Addison and Derek Move to Cleveland and Leave Bizzy and Archer to Their Own Devices._ This option? Is tempting. Very tempting.

…she's actually considering a call to her travel agent to ask about Ohio real estate when her brother finally deigns to call and update her that he's still stuck in California.

 _Great._

She's worn out from the conversation with Bizzy and attempting halfheartedly to scheme Archer's involvement; when she finally gets him on the phone, he's all apologies and promises—typical—and swears he'll get on a flight in the morning. She almost tells him not to bother, but truthfully … she'd like to see him.

And even if she and Bizzy reached something of an understanding in her office today … well, that was today. It doesn't cover what Bizzy is expecting tomorrow morning.

She's trying to figure out how to handle that expectation of tomorrow morning … including telling her husband about it … when she finds herself at the nurses' station next to Meredith Grey.

… who looks quite a bit like the way she feels, maybe a little more shellshocked.

"Are you okay?" Addison asks after a moment.

"Cristina broke up with Burke," Meredith says, staring straight ahead at … nothing. Or maybe where Yang was minutes before; Addison wouldn't know.

"She did?" Admittedly, she's surprised.

Very surprised.

Meredith nods. "She did. And … she also said she talked to your mother … ."

Addison swallows hard, wondering what Bizzy said to make her change her mind.

" … but she didn't tell me what she said." Meredith tilts her head. "She did say your mom didn't really seem like the give-your-friends-advice type."

"She's not." Briefly, Addison wonders if that's why Yang wanted to talk to her. It seems just contrary enough to make sense to that particular intern, if she were to try to get into her head.

And Addison also doesn't know what they discussed. She's been so consumed by the conversation she had with her mother in her office—the most honest they've ever had, surely, even if the bar is low—but she remembers now how curious she was about Bizzy's conversation with Yang.

"How is she?" Addison asks carefully.

"… she's okay. She's strong," Meredith adds, then pauses. "She might be drunk later. I might be drunk later too, actually."

Addison's eyes widen. "Did you—"

"No break-ups for me. Not today, anyway."

She's not sure whether to inquire further, not wanting to pry, when O'Malley jogs up.

"Your mother," he says, breathless, looking like he'd rather not be delivering the news. "She's here. In the hospital."

… if you can call that _news._

Addison is about to say something no more charitable than _really, O'Malley?_ in somewhat irritated fashion when she realizes he's not actually looking at her.

He's looking at Meredith … who doesn't look surprised.

..

"Shepherd!"

He looks away from the lightboard he's been studying.

"It's Ellis Grey," the chief says, his face grim. "She was just admitted."

"What happened?"

"She was lucid. She was lucid, at the center where she's been living, and then there were some irregularities in her labs."

"They ran a CT?"

The chief nods.

"Have someone run a stat MRI, and I'll take a look at the scans." Derek glances at the lightboard again. Richard will remember as well as he does the suddenly lucid Alzheimer's patient they worked on together in New York. Derek was a third-year resident, and based on the chief's current expression he also recalls the unfortunate way the case ended.

"Wilson's on it." Richard pauses. "She's asked for Meredith."

Derek nods distractedly, focused on the lightboard again.

"Do you think that's a good idea?"

"You should probably ask Bailey." Derek pauses to jot a quick note to himself on the pad of paper he's been using to keep track of his observations.

He's watching the chief leave when he ponders how different this visit is from the first time Ellis Grey was admitted, when Derek was still attuned to Meredith reactions, her concerns. He shouldn't have been, but he was.

There's no question for him that he's fully recommitted to his marriage—his left hand resting on the notepad is a reminder of that—so much so, perhaps, that he hasn't revisited in a while that first choice he made to reconcile. The meandering, hopeless one … the one he agreed to but never quite managed to actually work on. It all seems far away, now.

Here, in the present, there is a wife who will wait for him to leave, a mother-in-law thankfully out of the hospital, a baby on the way.

And a nineteen-year-old freshman football recruit whose brain is still lighting up his board. Mindful of the chief's interruption only as another check on his to-do list, he returns to the scans … reminding himself that while he would like to be the kind of father who embraces his child's interests …

..

" … he's not playing football," her husband says firmly without preamble as he catches up to Addison in the lobby; she looks up, a little confused.

"Who's not playing football? … oh," she says, glancing down at her bump. "Not now, no, but it definitely felt like he was earlier."

Derek's face softens. "He can play football now, but not later."

She nods. "You saw a football skull today?"

"Stealth TBI." He shakes his head. "He's only nineteen. So no football."

"No argument there." She rests a hand on his arm. "I saw Richard. He said Ellis Grey was admitted."

Derek nods. "She's stable, she's surprisingly lucid, but her scans were clear."

"It's not neurological?"

"No. There were some cardiac abnormalities. Nothing emergent; Richard said Burke would look tomorrow. Apparently he was out today."

Addison glances up. "Did Richard mention why?"

"No. Do you know why?"

"I might." Addison sighs.

"Tell me on the way to dinner?" Derek suggests, looking resigned to an evening with his brother in law … which she appreciates.

"Actually, Derek … you're going to need to try to contain your disappointment, but Archer's not flying in tonight."

"Really?" He seems to be making an effort to school his face, which she appreciates.

"He had a patient—don't make that face, Archer does have patients."

"Of course he does." Derek looks like he's trying very hard not to smirk. "Several a year … all coincidentally ripe for publication."

"You're going to be nice to him when he's here," she says firmly.

"I can be nice." Derek pauses. "I thought he wasn't flying in tonight."

"He's not. He _is_ flying in tomorrow. Same number of Montgomerys, but more spread out, which is … something, right?"

"It is definitely something." He leans in to kiss her—just quickly, nothing Richard can complain about.

"No dinner plans," Addison confirms, which are currently the best kinds of plans she can imagine. Based on Derek's expression, he's thinking the same thing. "Unless you have a … trout to grill."

"I can rustle something up." He smiles at her. "Doc will be happy to have us home early. No Bizzy for dinner, really?"

"Really."

"Don't tell me she has a patient too."

"No, she has _affairs to attend to,_ " Addison recites dutifully, "which really sounds more like an excuse the Captain would make, don't you think?"

Derek shakes his head, looking amused. "Addie, is that what they call a … Dad Joke?"

"You tell me … Dad." She smiles at him, feeling a little shy for some reason, and he gives her a genuine smile in return.

"So we're off the hook for tonight," he confirms. "Did Bizzy say anything about when she's—"

"Let's talk about it in the car." She tucks her hand through his arm, turning both of them toward the lobby doors.

..

"Bizzy wants to see the trailer," he says slowly, as if he's still processing it.

Addison, seated next to him on the porch of that very trailer, just nods.

"And she's coming to see it tomorrow," he continues.

She nods again.

"Your mother. To this trailer. Tomorrow."

"That's what I'm saying."

He drains his beer; when he finishes, though, somehow … he's smiling. And she is too.

 _That's on you, kiddo._ She rests her free hand over the spot where their son is growing. Sure, they've put work in too, but the baby has hefted a considerable amount of weight, especially considering how tiny he is. Somehow, everything feels a little lighter, when the three of them are alone together—well, four, counting Doc. Everything feels a little better.

"Addie."

She glances up.

"Is it too late to move to Cleveland?"

She laughs at the hopeful expression on his face; he does too and then covers her hand with his over her bump.

"We can let the baby decide," he suggests. "If he still wants to stay in the trailer, he can—" He stops talking as firm pressure meets their joined hands. "He loves the trailer," Derek pronounces, though he seems slightly alarmed—understandably—at the implication that their son understood his challenge.

"It takes a while to develop good taste," Addison counters.

"Please. You know you love the trailer too," he reminds her, smirking, and she busies herself stroking Doc's ears instead of denying it; he'd just see right through her anyway. Even in the dark.

Derek pauses. "You, uh, you think he actually understood?"

"Definitely." She smiles at his expression. "Honey, he's been moving around since I sat down."

Derek looks relieved, just as she realizes she called him _honey._ It's not like he's going to snap at her about it, not after everything, but she didn't realize it still felt instinctual. And it seems like he didn't even notice. Like it felt as natural to him as it did to her.

"So, Yang and Burke are over?"

Addison nods.

"Did you know before…?"

"… I had an inkling."

He can tell there's more to it, but he doesn't push her.

They sit in companionable silence for another few minutes, to the rhythm of Doc's loud but contented breathing and the gently wild sounds of the outdoor night.

"I was thinking," Addison says after a moment, "about chief."

"Richard?"

"No." She turns toward him, and he can see her eyes sparkling in the soft light of the hanging lantern. "About chief in general. The race."

"Ah."

"Do you want to know what I was thinking?"

"Always," and he says it without thinking twice, and if it's any ordinary evening's banter … something he can't imagine saying a few months ago.

She pauses for a moment and he can see the significance isn't lost on her. "I was thinking that being chief is a lot of work."

"Having to deal with all the visiting mothers, you mean?"

"Well, and reigning in the pregnant surgeons." She manages to say it with dignity despite the chief having scolded them more than once for noticing the effects of their reconciliation.

"That too." Derek pauses to scratch Doc's ears.

"Being a surgeon is already a lot of work."

He's not going to argue with that.

"Derek … when Meredith went in to help the toxic patient, while you were getting suited up … Mark said something."

 _I bet he did._ He just waits for her continue.

"He said, _this is why I'm going to be chief._ He, um …" Her tone changes to a more self-deprecating one, "he also said not everything is about me … or you."

"Me?"

"You." She takes a sip from her bottle of mineral water. "You, and me. The thing is, I think he's right."

"You think not everything is about us?"

"No." She laughs a little when he raises his eyebrows at her. "Fine, some things aren't. But this is."

She gestures in a way that could mean _our baby_ and could mean _our home_ and could mean _our life_.

(Assuming those three things are distinct.)

"I agree," he says after a moment, "but I'm not sure I'm following. You think Mark is right—that he's going to be chief?"

"Ooh, not that part." She takes another sip as if she's clearing her palate just at the thought of Chief Sloan, and he can't blame her. "But I think that being chief is a lot of work … a lot of extra work … on top of everything else we're doing. And if we have extra time—and I'm not saying we do—I'd rather it be for us."

She stops, sounding a little embarrassed; he's used to her sometimes backtracking when she thinks she sounds too sentimental … or too vulnerable. And her mother being in town can't be helping.

"I wanted to be in the chief's," she says slowly, "and I sort of wanted to win … but I don't actually want to be chief of surgery."

"Neither do I," he admits.

"Really?"

"Really." He realizes as he says it how much of this started out as jostling rivalry with Preston Burke and then became irritation with Mark trying to butt into their lives … and how little either of those things seems to matter compared with what's about to come for him and for Addison. "The chief of surgery should have … the ability to focus on the job. And that's why you mentioned Burke," he puts it together as he speaks, "because now that he and Yang are broken up—"

"—he has a lot of time." She looks at him. "What do you think?"

"I think we should let Burke be chief."

"Just like that." She snaps the fingers of her free hand, sounding amused.

"Just like that." He pauses. "What about Mark?"

"I don't think we should tell him." Her tone sounds slightly mischievous. "We tell him we're backing out now, he'll find some way to lord it over us or … make things more complicated … or make things difficult for Preston."

All possible.

"And Burke?"

"I say we tell Burke. He could probably use some good news."

Derek nods at this. He thinks about Burke and how frustrating he found the arrogant surgeon when they first met—but how gifted he can admit he is. And he can admit ruefully that as irritating as he found it that Mark thought he deserved to join the chief's race after barely a week in Seattle … Burke would be well within his rights to feel similarly about Derek and Addison when Burke has paid years more dues at Seattle Grace than either Shepherd has.

"What do you think?" Addison asks.

Doc seems to think the question is for him and moves slowly toward his mistress, who sets down her green bottle of mineral water to give him affection with both hands.

"Doc seems to like the idea," Derek says, "and I've always thought he was smart. … not well trained, but smart."

Addison smiles, freeing one hand to rest on her bump.

"And the baby?" Derek asks.

She tilts her head for a moment as if he's listening. "I think the baby agrees." And then she pauses, her tone turning more serious. "Twenty weeks," she says quietly.

"Twenty weeks," he agrees. Gently, he rests a hand next to hers, covering the place where their son is growing.

"Things get crazy after twenty weeks, Derek."

"Is that your medical opinion?" he can't resist teasing her, but he moves his hand to cover hers on her bump. "We can handle it," he says.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." He's quiet for a few moments. " … crazy how?"

She laughs a little. "Crazy like … I'm glad neither of us wants to be chief."

There's another series of moments in which they're both silently considering all the things that need to be done in preparation for a new baby.

He tries not to let his head spin, but he's cognizant that all the different roadblocks and diversions have kept them from focusing on the simple pragmatics of an impending birth. Some were bigger than others and some sadder, but from the bumps in their reconciliation to the visits from family, they haven't really had the chance to sit down and plan out, _here's what we're going to do._

Coming up with a plan, and executing that plan, without any spanners thrown in the works?

 _Crazy._

"Addie," he begins.

"Wait." She moves their hands so hers is covering his now. "I don't want to talk about it."

"…oh."

"I mean, I do want to talk about it, just not yet. I want to get through the rest of Bizzy's visit, and I want to see my brother, and then I want them all to go really far away. Or at least back where they came from. I want to get through the second anatomy scan. And then I want to talk about it. I want to talk about all of it."

A plan … to plan. A plan for a future plan.

He's heard of crazier ones, and they've come this far without one, and he's willing to trust her vision for the next step.

"That … sounds like a plan," he says, feeling a warm curl of anticipation within him for the conversations to come (ordinary and crazy all at once, the preparation for new life)—and then there's an answering flash of movement under their palms as if their unborn son is as excited for the future as his parents are.

* * *

 _Twenty weeks (and one day)! The Sheplet is one fast-growing little artichoke. If you sense some foreshadowing of a time jump, you're right, but not until we finish with the Montgomerys. Still, Addison and Derek have a Plan now (to plan), and it won't be too long until they do. In the meantime, we have a nice, calm ending for this chapter ... and it may be a couple of weeks until the next one, because I am committed to finishing The Climbing Way and that takes a lot of my writing time. Thank you as always for reading and I would love to know what you think, so I hope you will review and let me know!_


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